Light load

I'm fortunate to have great friends with kind hearts and words. Two thoughts I keep having:
1. Stop feeling so guilty.
2. Make peace with grief.
Bonus: Crack me open a Scrimshaw.

Ugh. Let's lighten the mood around here. Now for the punny farts, I mean funny parts, as someone once said.

Whenever we make a big purchase, not really moneywise, but big in size, I always fret about how we're ever going to get it home in either one of our TINY silver cars. Because how could one POSSIBLY transport a full size sofa without a truck?! However, Leon always comes through with his amazingly compact, metrosexual Volkswagen. In the past this car has held: the aforementioned sofa, the ENTIRE Frenchmen set up plus three adults, a crib, a very big Christmas tree, half of our old apartment, full camping gear for three people and a dog, and that's including a tent for the damn dog. Leon loves to remind me that they don't have SUVs in Germany. They make their Ikea trips in Volkswagens, too.
This picture shows Leon's car loaded up with Ira's new twin-sized, mini loft bed, the accompanying matress and a set of drawers. Yeah, I know. Take it easy.

This here is me

Since my mom died last month (possibly the worst Friday the 13th ever), I feel like the cat in this photo. I've been scurrying about for the last few weeks making plans for the service and tying up family business. All of this is going on concurrent to my regular life, where I am the living mom. I truly believe that once my grief catches up with me (been having dreams of being chased by grizzly bears and it wasn't hard to figure out what those are about), I'm going to let go of this branch I'm hanging onto. I'm pretty sure there's no cute poster for that.

10/24/09

This is from yesterday. Blogger wouldn't let me post from email.

It's Ira's birthday-eve. My boy turns 3 tomorrow! Ladies, lock up your daughters.

Ready to get serious? I've been feeling so helpless in the midst of everything going on with my mom. On my way into the hospital this evening, I see two other women who are possibly living within the same scary waiting pattern. I recognize something in their faces that tells me this. One, zombie-like, waddling towards the hospital entrance, wearing an expression of exhaustion and pain. Another, drivng out of the parking lot, nervously chewing on one hand and steering with the other. And here I am: somewhere between them.. This is possibly the most helpless I've felt in my life. It's nerve wracking and excrutiatingly painful to me. Can't imagine how mom feels.

The worst possible thing

Parents
Originally uploaded by riblet.

Mom is still in the hospital, but hopefully will be able to leave soon. It's been a crazy last few days. Lot of worry, lots of crying and doctors, nurses, labyrinth-like hospital halls. What started as a trip to the ER because of a bad fall and what we thought was associated confusion and memory loss, turned into CANCER WATCH 2009. Several tests showed 3 tumors in mom's brain and some swelling related to one of them, which is causing the confusion and memory loss. So much waiting for now. We'll know more later about the actual diagnosis and treatment options later. I hate this.