(This is a completely unedited version. I haven't even read it yet. I'll fix it later. By myself.)
Okay, so for the handful of you who don't actually know me, The Gummer has been diagnosed with Parkinson's-related dementia. So, I had been writing this blog that was inadvertently sort-of making fun of someone with a disability. Ooops. I've been writing things here and there on my regular facebook page, but it's time to go back to the website.
I think the posts are going to be shorter, at least for a while. I have to keep it small as we redefine normal. I keep thinking about the titles of two books that I have- but have not read- : "You Are Here, This Is Now" and "We Are These People". I'm trying to get myself to stay in it, to accept it and become it.
It's like when I found out who my birth mother was. I was living in Champaign at the time. I couldn't work through my feelings. I couldn't connect with it. I just got in the car. ("When in doubt, drive it out." ) I needed to get the straight shot down... I didn't want to story to be cut with all this filler bullshit about adopted kids being special. I didn't want to pretend it never happened, that my name wasn't changed, or that I didn't kind of look like a blonde-phase Prince Jackson when I was with the rest of my family.
(I get tired of people in stores and restaurants asking if The Gummer and I are together. Sometimes I like to say, "Well, not TOGETHER together." It's quite therapeutic.)
Anyway, so I was driving through the mid-state corn and I remember making a fist... not in an angry way, but in a solid way... and thumping it onto the steering wheel (non-hornular area) while saying out loud, "A man and a woman had a baby. They didn't keep it. They gave it to two people who wanted a baby. You are that baby."
Denial is not a river in the greater Champaign-Urbana (Chambana) region.
I'm back in the 'ville now.
Tonight, I was sitting on The Gummer's bed, banging my fist on her quilt, shouting at her, because things are getting worse, because she wouldn't do the little Gummer-appropriate circuit workout that we set up in the living room, because she doesn't want an iPad (with, eventually, a little finger holster to hold the stylus when she can't... like the ones for the severely disabled kids I worked with the morning), because so much of our family's story is about denial, because I am overwhelmed by the realization that it's just going to be me and Jack...
and because she can never, ever stick to one topic, move from Point A to Point B, or analyze a problem and develop a fucking action plan. That's not the Parkinson's; that's just her. It's hard to separate the two sometimes. (Doctor: "When did you notice that there were problems with her thinking and her mood?" Me: "Um, like, 1980.")
The Queen of Clean has always had clutter.
Anyway, so I was crying and cursing and waving my arms around like I was trying to land a plane. I was saying the things she didn't want to hear. I was pushing her. That's what you're supposed to do with people have Parkinson's. Push them.
I said the bad shit. I said it.
"I can help you, Mom. Take advantage of it. We need to get some adaptive technology and get a support team: a physical therapist, an occupational therapist. We need to find out what your insurance will cover..."
"What about you? YOU need to clean the basement."
Yep. We are "These People" now, but "Those People" are still standing in the yard and somebody's yelling, "LAH-rie!!!"
I'm just going to pretend I don't know what she's talking about.
"Cheeseburger."
No comments:
Post a Comment