The thoughts that pop up

I suppose it changes you, being close to someone with a debilitating disease. If you’re lucky, anyway. Lucky is the first thought, but I guess there’s another side, too. I’m fast approaching the age my mother was diagnosed. When that line marking the before and after was drawn. At some point along the way, the gratitude started seeping in, slow drips of how lovely it felt to walk, to climb steps, to DO. Carrying a laundry basket and remembering seeing her do the same countless times, simultaneously feeling that loss for her, wondering how much longer I’d be able to, and loving with my whole being my current ability. Just now and then being struck by it. I’m not sure if it’s more my age or this bird’s eye view I seem to carry of her life in my head now that has come to make it my near daily companion. Feeding myself, going to the bathroom, getting out of bed, washing my hair, painting my toenails. She is there with me, the image of how those things were taken from her, how she had to let go and turn her eyes to the ever dwindling pile of what was left. It makes me more conscious of the joy of movement on such a minute level, feeling fingers bend and muscles flex, the soft smooth slide of air going in and out. I am every time she did the same and all the years she couldn’t. On the one hand, I’m inclined to think gratitude is never a bad thing. On the other, it keeps the sadness of her struggle always fresh. It helps with the grief as I can’t possibly be selfish enough to wish she was still here but at the same time makes it impossible to let her go. I’m still living for her, moving for her, seeing and doing for her. Before she was gone, I had taken to making photo albums for her of the places I’d been that I’d have liked to have taken her. I guess I had assumed that mindset would diminish rather than grow. We never stop learning who we are, do we?