Mourning...

I am losing my mother...

and today it hit me hard that this is probably the reason why I have had trouble focusing and have felt paralyzed with the result of not getting anything productive done while I have lots to do.... I wrote about this earlier.

I have certainly experienced LOSS before.....

I have moved a couple of times between countries. Each move involves yet another "loss"..loosing the friends you had..."loosing" your house, your immediate support group....your life as you knew it ..
But every loss gets replaced soon with another gain. You will move on to a new house - usually a better one, you will build up new contacts, make new friends, gain new skills and all & all (unless it was not the right decision)...you will have a better life than the one you knew before. And the great thing - even though you are not with your friends anymore - you get to keep some of them for life - even if only over Skype !

But loosing something or someone that can not be replaced is different. Very different.

This past month we lost the puppy....
I almost lost one of my best friends...
I will soon loose my nextdoor neighbor who will move on to another country. She has been my absolute saving grace whenever I had a crisis or even when I did not have milk in the house - she was there.... I think she deserves a whole post on my blog of her own... and loosing her is certainly going to leave a big hole in my life as I know it right now....

But loosing your mother is a big deal...
and loosing her to Dementia means that you loose her before you really loose her.

I have tried to detach from her over the past 6 years as this reality has been staring us in the eye for a long time now...

But when all else around you seems uncertain and becomes unsettled, then that is the time you would typically want to turn to your mother..and that is when I have to deal with the reality that she is not there for me anymore...even though she is still there. And she will never pick up the phone again out of her own doing.. even if I decided to call. It is complicated. And it is tough.

I am thankful that she is still there...to give her a hug and to be with her...only that I live in a different country than her so that reality seems very far away right now. But I am thankful that she is not in pain with a disease like cancer and I am thankful that she was not taken away instantly from us....we have lots and lots of time and opportunity to share her time here...even though her skill-sets have simply dissappeared and her sparkling personality has gone numb. I am so thankful for my dad who is still there - having the brutal task of caring for her along with her helper. And I know he is in a process of mourning of his own....as he is witnessing her rapid decline to her final stage of Alzheimers.

But I also learnt today that I have a lot of caring people around me...Starting with my husband, old friends and even a new friend I made today - another gain amidst the loss...all were there today to pick me up and comfort me in a time where I felt alone, deflated and in a process of mourning over  loosing my mother before I have lost her...