funny how life turns out

not that life is OVER, it's just funny how the twists and turns take you in places that you never thought that you would find yourself. I am now taking care of the one person that did the most damage to me growing up. In the beginning, I wondered why in the heck I was doing this. The only answer was, she was my mother. I have to. The first two years were a constant fight, yelling, kicking, biting, and that was HER part. Mine was pushing her to do all the things that she had the ability to do. It would take 10 full minutes to tie her shoes, but with all I had read, as soon as an ALZ person stops doing the route things, they truly can no longer recall the ability. I didn't cut up her food, it took so much time to do anything, my spouse at the time, would do it for her. This counter acting all that I was trying to hold on to. Two years of that and she was failing fast. No longer able to walk upstairs to the bedrooms, she had to make the shift to a "home". That was June 4th. In April, two months before that, my husband asked me for a divorce. Drained from the caretaker roll and now failed as a wife, what would be next.

Why would I write all this? Background.

Today I must have said something wrong, she was playing the "no talking game". How do I know this? I asked. This was a game that was played all during my childhood. She would get mad at something, no one in the house really knew, and would speak not a word to my father, sister or myself. This game would go on for a little as 3 days to a week, to two years. So she remembered this game and played it today, well most of the day.

Why do I write this? The journey. I am writing to complete the healing process. Notice I said "complete". I started this path because of a great therapist, THANKS BETTE W. I have a way to go. This journey of caretaking and healing at the same time sounds a little crazy. Not something most would pair, but remember how this entry started. This is just one of the twists, other wise I could say, bitter, party of one.