Mom has a lovely way of saying things that make a huge difference in my feeling useful, and dropping them in times and places that make everything easier. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s possible to make it a lot harder on me, and she accidentally does this as well… but when she helps by letting me see that she sees me, I get buoyant. This was definitely one of those moments.
June 30, 2017
You know, last night I dropped mom off, and helped her get settled while they asked her and I questions to make her stay better and easier for everyone. One of the questions was around levels of independence doing things, asked to Donna. She answered “Well, I stay independent with him helping me,” which as contradictory as it sounds, is the best thing she ever said unprompted. Mom is still, no matter how much the sentences are a struggle, very clear on my role and her appreciation of it. I really can’t stress enough how amazing that is, and what a tribute to her basic being to be able to front and centre another persons efforts when you have trouble with things like eating at times.
But for her to use the words “I’m independent with him helping me” is the ultimate validation for me. She feels it as I’ve intended and hoped it to be. She has something that she holds onto, and I wandered into this abyss knowing her impossibility of return– wondering if I’d feel like there had been no point, etc. But almost three years in and what I’ve wanted to see in the future is now very clearly the present.
I can sit back today, getting things here in order and ready to take off on my own much needed trek into the wilderness to realign for the better days still to come. Mom ‘gets it’ and has something to hang onto. She feels independent through living with me and the cats.
I fucking did it, and I can take a deep breath and feel more accomplished in this than anything before. I love these tears on my cheeks. I have time to feel them dry today. Today, I really like me. All the demos and conferences in the world never meant as much as mom telling me in the best way possible that I’m a good boy.