About a boy....2

So, um....hey. I know, it's been a looong time since I posted anything. Busy working, Second dropped my laptop and it broke, busy busy, yadda yadda.

Forgive me. I need to talk today.

I brought First to college today. Settled him in, spent time, set him up, went to the meet and greets....and then drove away. Tears pouring down, heart breaking, soul singing.

He is going to LOVE his school. Seriously. Like watching the Bee Girl find her field, First has arrived where they speak his language, see how he sees, feel what he feels. He will be happy with his own kind.

But. Oh, BUT. But once upon a time, *I* was his kind. I was his star, he was my planet. Bedtimes stories, private jokes, ritual songs before sleeps. I was his Alpha, and he was my world. And how quickly that time went. How far away, how almost forgotten under the rush of it all those long-ago nights seem now. How lucky I was to have them at all. That boy of mine! How I love him. I love all my children, don't ever doubt that. But it would taste a lie to not admit that the first one, my First, holds a different place in my heart. He made me a mother, you see, and whilst that will never change, my role in his life will.

From Manager to Consultant, and one on call, at that.I hope he wants me in his life. I hope that I have earned his trust, and that he misses me too. And his hard-earned glories will be all his own now. Faculty members, TAs and mentors will get the most deserved thanks now, and I will be thankful to them too -- I will! (As long as he remembers to add "and thanks to my mom" or some such courtesy nod to my presence. Sad, innit?) They will have taught him to sing in the language he stutters in now. He will thrive under their attentions, and he will strive for their praise as ardently as he once strove for mine (and if one of THEM ever hangs your art on THEIR fridge and shows it to all THEIR friends you be sure to let me know - so there!). I really do wish him well, and I really am glad that he is so happy and so very much at home in his new dorm.

How I wish mine didn't feel quite so empty, with him gone......

Please, First, fly now. Find your excellence, find all that is within you, find your absolute TRUTH. Please, find your bliss, find it and come back and share it with me. Not because you feel bound to, not because I can't live without you, not because of obligation, guilt, duty, none of that. Share it with me because you want to. Because it's funnier when we laugh together. Because you want me to know your new language too. Fly past me, but please don't fly beyond me.

I know I tell you all the time, but oh, my dear First. How I love you so.

Alzheimer's can KISS MY ASS.

Fuck off, Alzheimer's. I mean it. Forgive me, gentle readers, but I have had enough of that particular specter. You came and stole my mother in law, and that was bad enough, but now you have come for my mother, and that is a level of remove I did not appreciate fully until it struck. GO AWAY and leave her, all of us, ALONE. My kids are basically screwed now - it's on both sides of them, and it will creep in and steal them too.

How DARE you come for my mother? Don't you know who she is? She is a doctor, she gave her entire professional life to helping others, to making sure others were cared for. How dare you turn her, a community icon, an beloved authority figure to so many, a champion for the underserved, healer, missionary, teacher, mother, friend, into a doddering, timid, questioning, insecure, anxious, old lady? Do you think it doesn't stab me to the heart when they give me that sad, apologetic, knowing smile? Do you think she really can't see the people at church actively avoiding her at coffee hour, not wanting to have the same conversation for the tenth week in a row?

What is WRONG with these people? Those same people who would sidle up to her at every opportunity to ask her to squeeze them in next week, come in to the vestry to look at this mole, and does the baby look all right to her, now avoid her, because THEY don't have the time and patience to hear the same story again. Everyone will hug me and whisper how sorry they are, how sad it is, but no one will tell her. No one takes her to lunch, asks her over for a cup of tea. After all those late night phone calls she answered, extra miles she went battling insurance companies, countless hours spent. Nice.

Is it really them I am railing against? Or is it just that I can't stand seeing my mom reduced to this caricature  of who she once was? Worst of all - she KNOWS this is happening. She knows her mind is going and it is breaking her heart. It breaks mine to hear her say "I was never a great beauty. We know this. But I was always the smartest woman in the room. Who am I now?"  We both shake out fists at the sky, but the sky never answers.

And oh, I am selfish too. I MISS my mother. I want her advice, her counsel, her cheery voice at the end of the phone. My children miss her smiling face at their concerts, cheering on the sidelines, helping with chemistry homework. GIVE HER BACK, Alzheimer pigs!

Please, give her back. Please?