Thursday, May 14, 2020

Welcome to Day 9 of the 2020 RWISA "RISE-UP" Blog Tour! #RRBC #RWISA #RWISARiseUp


Welcome to Day 9 of the 2020 RWISA "RISE-UP" Blog Tour! Each day, I will be featuring an amazing RWISA author and a piece he/she has written to focus on one of our two themes: A World Without Mom and/or How Living in This New World Has Change Me.  Today's author is Heather Kindt! :-)





LOSING MOM

By: Heather Kindt
Have you ever lost someone? The pain is unimaginable, ripping through you like an express train. But what if you lost that person again and again? The agony of the loss knocks you off your feet until you’re numb. That’s what it’s like when you lose someone to dementia.
My mom was my best friend.
She was my shoulder to cry on, and I told her everything. On summer mornings, she’d lie in bed thinking, so I’d hop in next to her and we’d talk about everything or nothing at all. She was there to hold me when I lost my first love and to celebrate with me when I found my last. We spent an entire summer planning my wedding and finding ways to keep the costs within my measly teacher salary. Rummaging through bargain bins at the Christmas Tree Shop, we found the perfect, gold-trimmed ribbon to don the pews at the church.
After I was married, I moved to Colorado and being two thousand miles apart put a dent in both of our souls. But, she was there when my babies were born, helping me figure out the tasks of new mother for the few weeks she was able to be away from home. She was always there, even if it had to be over the telephone wires.
Until she wasn’t.
It started off slowly—spoiled milk in the refrigerator, aluminum foil in the microwave, and accusing my uncle of leaving tiny, recording devices under her couch. She’s getting forgetful with age…paranoid. That’s what I told myself.
But then things weren’t so small. When my mom and dad finally moved to Colorado, she and my brother took separate cars to church one night. Matt followed my mom back to their house but instead of turning down their road, my mom went straight. I received the phone call from Matt frantic, explaining the situation.
“Why didn’t you follow her?” I thought it was a reasonable question.
“I don’t know?”
I lived an hour and a half away, and it was eight o’clock at night. Pulling on my coat, I waited by the phone. There was no way I’d be able to find my mom in a city at night, though I’d search all night if I had to. Before leaving out the door, I called Matt one last time. Why wasn’t he searching?
A pair of headlights turned up our driveway. Impossible. We lived in a housing development in the country littered with dirt roads and deer. I rushed down the stairs to greet my mother. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her whole body shook as she melted into my arms.
“He left me,” she sobbed. “I found a road that I recognized that went to your house, and I kept going.”
I wrapped her in a blanket and lay next to her on the bed in the spare room, her body heaving as she fell asleep.
As time went on, the incidents became more frequent. My parents moved back to New Hampshire because Dad couldn’t handle the altitude. My sister insisted they live in a retirement community. My mom didn’t like the price tag, so six months later she found an apartment in the town I grew up in. I was their telephone caregiver, calling every day on my way to work.
That summer when we visited, it was becoming more and more apparent that Mom couldn’t care for Dad, who was eighteen years her senior. He fell a couple of times, and she called the ambulance because she couldn’t lift him. Being there, I learned it was because he was malnourished and dehydrated. A local independent living facility provided them with at least two meals a day, and they could make friends. It worked for a while. Mom accused the maids of stealing her things, but it was her paranoia setting in again.
But then Dad got sick.
My mom insisted on coming to live with us. It was always how I imagined things would be. When Dad passed away, Mom would come live with us and help me with my children. But Dad wasn’t gone yet.
She insisted.
We moved her out to Colorado, and she lived with us. Frequent plane trips to New Hampshire drained my bank account. She missed him and in less than a year she wanted to move back. Things were different now. We hid her car keys, we arranged for her to go to a local senior center while we were at work, and she became severely combative.
For three years, my mother lived with us as I lost her day after day. At times, it felt like she ripped my heart out and stomped on it. I lashed out at her in my own frustration one day when she helped me clean out a closet. I missed our conversations, our comradeship and the love we’d always shared. It was as if someone reached down to Earth, snatched my mother and replaced her with a stranger. After three years, my husband and I made the decision to place her in a nursing home on a memory care unit.
I lost her again.
It was the most difficult thing I’ve done in my entire life, but I had to do it for her safety. Mom would get angry with me for no reason at all and storm out of the house. My husband followed her in the car until he could coax her inside. Her leaving also saved our marriage. The strain and stress it put on us those three years isn’t something I would want anyone to go through.
Have you ever lost someone? I lose my mom everyday, but it’s not as painful now. When you lose someone to dementia, at least for me, it’s like you’re going through the pain of losing someone suddenly again and again over many years. At some point, the pain numbs because it has to, or the stress will eat you alive. I love my mother, but the disease has stolen precious years of her life. It’s in the small glimmers of her spirit—a smile, an mischievous eye aimed at my husband, a hug from recognition—that I find hope that someday we can be together fully again.

   

Thank you for supporting today's RWISA author along the RWISA "RISE-UP" Blog Tour!  To follow along with the rest of the tour, please visit the main RWISA "RISE-UP" Blog Tour page on the RWISA site.  For a chance to win a bundle of 15 e-books along with a $5 Amazon gift card, please leave a comment on the main RWISA "RISE-UP"Blog Tour page!  Thank you and good luck! 

22 comments:

  1. Hello, Yvette And Heather! Wow. This was a touching piece. I can relate, Heather, my father suffered from dementia before he died. I felt the same like I was losing him over and over again. It was extremely painful to see a brilliant man who I had such wonderful conversations with deteriorate mentally like that. He would have moments of clarity in which I felt like I had my dad back and then I would lose him again. I wouldn't wish this experience on my worst enemy. <3 xo

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    1. Thank you for connecting with Heather, Vashti! I wish there was a way to prevent that mental decline in our loved ones.

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    2. I'm so sorry you had to go through this, Vashti. I remember the moments of clarity and holding onto them with everything in me.

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  2. Thank you, Yvette, for sharing Heather's moving story. I can relate to it on a deep level.

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  3. Hi, Yvette. Heather's story is heartbreaking, to say the least. The scene where her mom got lost but found her way to Heather's house made me tear up. Thank you for sharing!

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    1. I teared up as well. It's as if her heart knew where home was. Thanks for stopping by, Jan! :-)

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    2. That was such a tough night, Jan. It felt so good to wrap her up in the blankets in our spare bedroom to let her know she was safe.

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  4. Thank you for hosting, Yvette. Heather's post is a deeply moving testimony to the difficult side of love. During my dad's final years he remembered little, however, when I talked with him just before he passed, he knew me. He couldn't talk, but he reached up to let me know he loved me. ♥

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    1. That must have been such a blessing, Gwen. Thank you for sharing that moment with us. :-)

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    2. That's so true, Gwen. It is a difficult side of love, but if you truly love someone you do as much as you can for them.

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  5. This is such a heart-wrenching post, Heather. I nursed my darling mother-in-law in the last years of her eventful life. It broke my heart that she had no recollection of me or of the forty plus years of laughter and tears we had shared. Thanks for sharing this with us on your site, Yvette.

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    1. Thank you for sharing your story and connecting with Heather, Sooz! I appreciate you. :-)

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  6. This disease is heartbreaking and tragic. Thank you for participating in this event.

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  7. That is a terrible disease, Heather. Thank you, Yvette for hosting.

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  8. It is indeed a terrible disease, Heather. My mother suffered from it and passed away many moons ago. I believe she is in a much better place now.

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    1. She is Bernard. Someday Mom will be with Dad again.

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    2. Thank you for sharing your story, Bernard. I appreciate you stopping by. :-)

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  9. Thank you for sharing my story and being so supportive of my blog during this tour. I really appreciate it! It's also great to connect with another YA Fantasy author who is also a teacher.

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    1. It's my honor to share your story, Heather. Your books are right up my alley so I cannot wait to read them. :-)

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I love comments, so please share your thoughts with me! :-)