![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
But I don't know what kind. It could be that I've been sleeping too much. Could be that I'm going a little house-crazy, but that's not really likely considering I went out yesterday. Maybe I'm just antsy, because the holidays are coming and I can't really think of any cool presents for my parents. Or it could be that I'm contemplating a new computer for the holidays, and I don't want my parents to spend that much money on me even though I really want one.
It could be that we got the phone call today that my grandmother may not be long for this world. She's apparently stopped eating and is barely drinking. She's lost 6 pounds in the last week. Objectively, academically, I think it's about damn time, because her mental and physical quality of life, despite the best efforts of those who love her, is not good. Viscerally, I don't want her to die. If she dies, that means my mother is that much closer to dying, or to losing her mind, or both.
It was different when my father's parents died. For one thing, my paternal grandfather died before my sister was born, so I never met him. My paternal grandmother died when I was thirteen or fourteen. Even then I didn't really comprehend (or want to) the implications of my father's mother dying.
After this summer, I honestly fear for my mother's mental health should something else happen. I came up to her today when she was standing at the sink and hugged her. She looked at me, and I could tell she wasn't feeling good about the whole situation. She wasn't near tears, and it didn't look as if she'd been crying too recently. She said that she doesn't want to be selfish and wish her mother would hold on when she's obviously unhappy and unhealthy. But she wants her mother, even though her mother hasn't been seen in years.
My grandmother was an incredible woman. She worked in the map services in the army, graduated from Michigan State University with a major in Spanish and a minor in Geology. She married a musician and not only stayed married to him through fifty years, but raised four children (and at various times took in several other children who needed homes) on a musician's salary. Before I could meet this woman, her brain started to deteriorate, metaphorically if not literally. By the time I was in possession of enough facilities of my own to appreciate her, she was gone, and I have only the memories passed onto me from my mother and her siblings to remember her by.
Instead, my grandmother has always been more of a child than I am really comfortable dealing with. Though most of the children I've been around in the last few years have longer memories and don't ask where they are every few minutes. I don't like the thought of my mother, my aunts, or my uncle going through the loss of their mother, but I think they've been going through it for years.
If the personality is dead and the body remains, is that really a reason to mourn? Or should it be celebrated that she is finally, fully at peace?
There is no way I will feel this philisophical when it's my turn. When it's me looking at my mother, remembering the incredible person she was, and trying to ignore the frail shell of the person she became.
I asked her to take ginko, on the off chance that it will help stave off the mental problems my grandmother and great-grandparents faced. I wanted her to start exercising, in the hopes that possibly it will keep her circulatory system going strong despite her diabetes. But genetics are against us all, and in the cold rational part of me, I know that it is more than likely my mother will end up exactly where my grandmother is. The even colder part figures that she won't reach that point until after my father is gone, and figures that my sister will not be the one taking care of my mother. My sister is likely to have a family. I am not.
But I guess we'll see.
I could be getting morose and teary over nothing. Maybe grandma's just sick, and she'll bounce back, and I won't have to worry about my mother's mental health.
*knocks wood*
I'm going to go bury my head in some silly fanfic and pretend the outer world doesn't exist for the rest of the night. Not to play Scarlet or anything, but tomorrow.
It could be that we got the phone call today that my grandmother may not be long for this world. She's apparently stopped eating and is barely drinking. She's lost 6 pounds in the last week. Objectively, academically, I think it's about damn time, because her mental and physical quality of life, despite the best efforts of those who love her, is not good. Viscerally, I don't want her to die. If she dies, that means my mother is that much closer to dying, or to losing her mind, or both.
It was different when my father's parents died. For one thing, my paternal grandfather died before my sister was born, so I never met him. My paternal grandmother died when I was thirteen or fourteen. Even then I didn't really comprehend (or want to) the implications of my father's mother dying.
After this summer, I honestly fear for my mother's mental health should something else happen. I came up to her today when she was standing at the sink and hugged her. She looked at me, and I could tell she wasn't feeling good about the whole situation. She wasn't near tears, and it didn't look as if she'd been crying too recently. She said that she doesn't want to be selfish and wish her mother would hold on when she's obviously unhappy and unhealthy. But she wants her mother, even though her mother hasn't been seen in years.
My grandmother was an incredible woman. She worked in the map services in the army, graduated from Michigan State University with a major in Spanish and a minor in Geology. She married a musician and not only stayed married to him through fifty years, but raised four children (and at various times took in several other children who needed homes) on a musician's salary. Before I could meet this woman, her brain started to deteriorate, metaphorically if not literally. By the time I was in possession of enough facilities of my own to appreciate her, she was gone, and I have only the memories passed onto me from my mother and her siblings to remember her by.
Instead, my grandmother has always been more of a child than I am really comfortable dealing with. Though most of the children I've been around in the last few years have longer memories and don't ask where they are every few minutes. I don't like the thought of my mother, my aunts, or my uncle going through the loss of their mother, but I think they've been going through it for years.
If the personality is dead and the body remains, is that really a reason to mourn? Or should it be celebrated that she is finally, fully at peace?
There is no way I will feel this philisophical when it's my turn. When it's me looking at my mother, remembering the incredible person she was, and trying to ignore the frail shell of the person she became.
I asked her to take ginko, on the off chance that it will help stave off the mental problems my grandmother and great-grandparents faced. I wanted her to start exercising, in the hopes that possibly it will keep her circulatory system going strong despite her diabetes. But genetics are against us all, and in the cold rational part of me, I know that it is more than likely my mother will end up exactly where my grandmother is. The even colder part figures that she won't reach that point until after my father is gone, and figures that my sister will not be the one taking care of my mother. My sister is likely to have a family. I am not.
But I guess we'll see.
I could be getting morose and teary over nothing. Maybe grandma's just sick, and she'll bounce back, and I won't have to worry about my mother's mental health.
*knocks wood*
I'm going to go bury my head in some silly fanfic and pretend the outer world doesn't exist for the rest of the night. Not to play Scarlet or anything, but tomorrow.
