Time, Time, Time, What's Become of Me?

My Beautiful Mommy

Just to let you all know, I'm still here, alive and creating, along with doing a bit of sh-t kicking too.  I got some really upsetting news last night from my brother, Apparently, the dietitian at my mother's nursing facility has decided my mother needs to go on a diet since she's gained mucho poundage.  My mother was always very conscientious about her figure.  She used to tell me how she could eat and eat and never gain an ounce when she was a young girl and weighed 95 lbs. on her wedding day and wore a size 5 shoe ( I weighed 130 lbs. and wore a size 9 shoe, at the first wedding...second, I still wore a size 9 shoe..mum on the weight).  Unlike her daughters, who even looked at a potato chip, would balloon out.  She never really had a weight problem, unless one counts pregnancy as one, which she did when she was pregnant with my little brother.  She gained a whole 10 lbs.!  Hell, I gained 40 with all 3 of mine, that is, 40 each time.  However, I was able to lose the the weight by Christmas time (all 3 of my kids were born in the month of Sept...hmmm, perhaps losing weight before Christmas should have been a rather big hint!!  LOL).

So back to Mom.  She was always on a restricted diet due to her very delicate tummy.  I didn't grow eating things like peanut butter, sodas, corn chips, etc., not that she couldn't eat it, but my brother was allergic and she made it a point to keep all those temptations out of the house since it usually sent my folks to the ER with him after he got a hold of something he ought'n.  There were things like sugared cereals, many sweets, well, basically, all the good stuff kids love, and yet, I still had a weight problem.  I'm not a fan of pork, again, she couldn't eat it, so we didn't. Although, she did make a good pork roast now and again for my dad, but her pork chops were fit for sole replacements. She also loved making Chicken -a la-King....YUCK!  To this day, I really don't like creamed sauces of any kind.  She would buy those little Pepperidge Farm puff pastry shells and fill them up with the al a King crap and I would scoop out the creamed glop and just eat the pastry.  Don't get me wrong, my  mother was a very good cook of other things, though.  

Like I said, she was limited in her diet, but the one thing she could eat and did...a lot, are sweets, which I'm sure she stashed out of our sight.  I recall her eating many bags of marshmallows when she was pregnant with my little brother, Jaime.  I really thought, in my 10 year old brain, she was going to give birth to the Stay Puft marshmallow dude!  She inherited the love of sweets from her mother, my Machita.  My Mach  traditionally had a drawer in her dresser, designated for sweets only...no room for undies, slips or bras.  As children, we raided her bottom drawer and after my grandfather died, she moved in with my aunt, and even their dog knew where the sweet drawer was too!!  He would come in and we'd ask, "Kaiser, where are the cookies?" and he would walk to the dresser and stare at the drawer.  He also took instruction in Spanish after my grandmother moved in, making him a bilingual cocker spaniel.

So the news received last night was that she has been forbidden from any sweets or desserts.  She's 91, REALLY!!!??  It's the one thing my poor mom loves and now is restricted to little or none.  She can't walk, she has lost most of her use of her hands and she sits in that room, day-in, day-out.  She's tired of living, she's had enough and wants to join my dad and her family.  As I told her the other day, pointing to my head, "Mom, this understands," then pointing to my heart, "But this is having difficulty accepting it."  She even lost a front tooth while having lunch the other day, what's with that??? 

It reminds me of time I went to visit my grandmother, Mamaita, my dad's mom, in the hospital.  She was 101 years old and her blood pressure had dropped a bit, so she was admitted.  She sat there and told me she wanted a sandwich.  I asked her which kind and I got silence, so I began reciting different kinds, in Spanish, "Jamon?" "No." "Pollo?" 'NO!" ...and so we danced till I finally hit on it..."Queso?" and she gave me a big grin.  So I went out to the nurses station to ask them for a cheese sandwich and the nurse told me that wasn't on her diet...WHAT!!!???  "She's friggin' 101, for gawsakes!!"  I know they can't do much about it, so I became proactive, went back to my parent's house since that was closest to the hospital, made her an American Cheese sandwich with mayo, cut the crusts (I remember as a kid, she would do that for me, even though I loved the crust) and brought it to her...she loved it...ate every bit of it.  Three days later, she passed.  Of course, the first thing that came to mind was that maybe I killed her with that damn cheese sandwich or maybe she went to her eternal life, smiling at having that delicious cheese sandwich...that's the one I prefer to believe.

So here's my mother, facing the same thing, no candy, cake, pie, no nothing.  It's just all so sad and don't think for a minute I've kept my composure while writing this post.  Large tear drops have fallen during this rant and I'm not sure if they're tears of sadness or just so pissed off at all this.  Pissed off that she's had to suffer so much, pissed off as to why she's till here and for what purpose.  I have become desensitized at entering the nursing home, all those elderly people slumped in their wheel chairs, spending their lives in that or their beds, many say nothing and many yell out for help as I walk by.  I can't help but remember that scene from "Soylent Green," with Charelton Heston, Joseph Cotton, Chuck Connor and Edward G. Robinson.  The character of Mr. Robinson was that of an old intellectual who can remember what life was on Earth before over-population and corporate greed destroyed it (sound familiar?) He's had enough and decided to go to a facility that provided "peaceful endings."  He's in a large room where he's on a bed, surrounded by a panoramic screen, showing scenes of nature, those very scenes he recalls from his youth.  He slowly and happily slips away to his death.

In speaking with my friends, one of my ol' buds suggested we store up all the drugs we can, since we'll be prescribed many as we gain time and age.  We hold on to them until we're ready to say "ADIOS" to this world, however, I told her she has one little flaw in her plan.  What if we all develop some kind of memory loss, then who's going to remember where we stashed our bye-bye pills!!  LOL  That's for later, I guess.

So sorry for this rant, but I'm so friggin' angry and sad right now, and yet, there's no one to direct this towards and nothing I can do about it.  Maybe I'll slip her a Lindt bon-bon now and then...our little secret.  Have a good one, friends, and enjoy every day as much as you can.  Peace out.