Mixed feelings about the day

My friend Anita's mom is dying. They brought her home from the hospital today, nothing more they can do. Things are just going wrong too fast, no way to fix them any more....hospice is starting tomorrow, Anita doesn't know how much time is left. I am heartbroken for her. She is being so stoic, just like she was when her husband died. We've been through this before, though. When her husband was dying, and I would say things to try to get her to talk about her feelings, she would say things like "I'm alright" and not want to talk any more. I asked her how she was doing, and she would say, "Oh, I'm fine." And I truly, at that time, thought that she was. But after watching her have such a struggle after Joe died, I know she's lying. So I told her that tonite, and I told her that if I was there, I'd give her a big hug. And I told her that I cared about her and I made her promise not to lie to me if she needed a shoulder to cry on. She promised, but I don't believe her, so I'll just keep trying to tell her that I care about her and I'm here for her. Coming right on the tails of all this stuff with my own mom, the pain is all that much more poignant.

DH is doing good. Luckily for us. One of our pipes in the basement got thoroughly clogged two nights ago. When DH tapped on the pipe, it fell apart (welcome to our house). So tonite he put in a new pipe, can you believe that?? (Luckily the pipe that had been clogged only affected the washing machine and the kitchen sink). So we could still take showers and use the bathroom and all that. So I decided that I was going to do a bazillion loads of laundry at the laundromat today. Not a cheap proposition, but the laundry has really been piling up and I just don't have time to do it one load at a time right now, so this was one of the few times where I opted to spend money to save time. I feel good about that, having all that laundry done. I'm a little less happy about the lightness of pocket I feel, but there's always a tradeoff, I guess....

And my mom. She's not nearly as excited about going back to her apartment as I thought she would be. And tonite she alarmed me by saying "I'm getting so old....maybe it'd be better if you just let me die...." And then, the nurse's aide, the one our whole family likes the best, came in to see my mom, and when she left, my mom said, "She's two-faced. She tells you one thing, and tells me another." And I kind of went, "she does?" "Like what?" And she said, "Well, today she told me that everything was going to be hunky dory, and now she didn't way anything like that to you at all." (When the aide had been in the room, she had told me how my mom is getting herself out of bed, using the bathroom by herself, and doing a lot of walking. I told the aide that we were excited that my mom would be going back to her apartment soon. I was relieved that that was all it was, but so many thoughts go through my head....I never know for sure how the aides are treating my mom. It was just a few days ago that she said she heard all the aides outside her door talking about how they didn't want to help her. What's true and what's not? If she was staying there indefinitely, I think I'd put a "nanny cam" in there just so I'd know the truth. But since she's already been there nearly a month, and she's purportedly going home on Monday, I guess I'll wait on that and see what happens.

Oh, and I think we've given up on killing any more foxes for now. I'm just being extra careful to make sure the chickens are in their house before dark....one of my mom's aides at the nursing home, a male aide, surprisingly, one day when I was visiting my mom at lunch and telling her about how the fox got all the ducks, asked, "how many ducks did you have?" and when I told him, he seemed very sympathetic. Then today, he stopped into my mom's room and told me that his brother raises fancy expensive ducks and every fall, the ones that don't measure up to his standards, are given away to non-slaughter homes. And that last year he gave 30 ducks to a lady that worked at the nursing home. And that the aide was going to tell his brother about me, and maybe in the fall we would get some ducks for free--that's really a cool thought! So on that note, I'm going to get back to work.