Time for Her to Fly

I have rescued my mother, again, kidnapping her velvet bagged ashes from the seat of her broken wheelchair. They have been imprisoned for 22 months in a smelly, dark, cat litter room. Her chair is surrounded by her paper treasures being randomly eaten and soiled by resident mice. This satchel of dust was enshrined, mourned in self destructive depression by her grieving son.


Disturbingly reminiscent of the last day she was home when I came to help her as she was in pain. She was bright and happy when I first arrived, before the debilitating onslaught began again. She went into the bathroom to dress and I began to cry surveying her cluttered, impassible, life. I had been powerless to correct it, unwelcome to touch anything by my sibling who lived there, interpreting my offers, as criticism of his care. It was wrong for my beautiful mother to wheel through the maze of recycling, papers, and junk. I knew my brother was paralyzed by his obsessive compulsive brain and symbiotic life with our mother. I understood.

I had to save her, but as in all sad movies I was too late. She went to the hospital. A pilgrimage of family came to say good bye.

I look at the red pouch in front of a window at my house. She still is not all the way home, not in my earthly thinking. It is time to let her ashes dance in the wind, sing by the moonlight, grow brilliant sunflowers and fly joyfully away.

Confetti Parade

It truly is a wonderful life, George Bailey
Breathing in the cold winter air, against a giant pink sky

Married thirty-five years - Still like each other-most of the time
Three children - who are kind, tolerant, and see the humor in life

A large and eclectic family

Amazing friends who listen and still are friends
In-laws that are productive and strong at eighty-six and eighty-one
Cats that keep me warm and make me laugh
Dogs that protect me and make me laugh

Job that is challenging, rewarding, and fun
House that is paid for
A family farm shared with siblings

Good health
Good health insurance

Opportunities
Accepted at UM and MSU
Full scholarship at MSU ( college terminated by marriage)
Lived in Italy two years
Essays published in local and Detroit papers
Swam with dolphins in Xcaret Mexico
Ran two marathons

Planted trees with my dad forty years ago
 Now trees tower in a wooded refuge

Christmas Eve parties with traditional Czech foods at my house.
Eighty-Seven friends and relatives celebrated this year

My mother giving me the extraordinary gift of life.
The extraordinary gift of being with my mother as she left this life

I want to take each moment and pump it up until it is full without bursting.
 If it does burst confetti will rain down in bright streams of laughter.

If Gabriel Byrne was listening

I have been watching “In Treatment” to see what the protocol of therapy encompasses. I took the advice of the neurologist and went to see a Neuro-Psychologist. I talk he listens. I am confused by so little interaction. I am uncomfortable talking without mutual sharing. I don’t know where to begin, still confused by the benefit of counseling to remedy my visions of birds, nocturnal self-violence, sleep invasions and numb face. Which if any of my emotional dog bites are causing these physical reactions? I do not feel better dragging through the mud of my life. I struggle with the reason for remembering painful experiences. I am overcome with futile grief. I could not change it then and can not change it now. There is no time machine, if there was I would need instructions to make the right decisions and even with that knowledge, what about the factors I cannot control?

I am circling, trying to find the way out.

Is the purpose to make me stronger, when hands are wrapped around my neck squeezing the air from my lungs? Will it help me forgive myself when my depressive alcoholic genes come to life in my children? Is it to acquire coping skills watching my father feverously try to hang himself from the clothesline? Is it to teach me patience after yelling at my mother for potatoes not cooked to my specifications, she hemorrhages dark red blood in her wheelchair and on the floor? Is it forgiveness when  a relative steals, and lies? Is it tolerance when confronted with hatred laced diatribes in the name of religion? Is it empathy when I hear the grief of loss in my daughter’s voice? Is it gratitude when my dad stops screaming and dies?

I keep watching this HBO version of psychological healing; my appointments appear to be similar, though no one has manifested their turmoil with such symptoms except, perhaps the psychologist who is sure he has the signs of Parkinson's disease and researches obsessively on the internet. I remain conflicted on my creation of neurological phantoms. My counselor tells me I have misinterpreted the diagnosis.

I talk he listens…. Will this change anything? Will this fix me?

The sun is shining.  I can feel my heart beat.  I am alive.