Caretaking

My brother and sister and I are all working on keeping Mom's spirits up as much as possible. When my little brother, Marty, died 30 years ago, we really thought she'd grieve herself to death. Since the 3 of us who are left are all adults now, at least we feel we are not powerless where Mom's moods are concerned. She seems to appreciate the calls and visits (while we were all frequent callers and visitors before, we've tripled or quadrupled the time we are spending with her, as best we can around work & kids).

She's never been one to talk about her emotions, which makes everything more difficult (she didn't get into the habit of saying "I love you" until I started telling her that everytime I saw her as a young adult -- at least that seems to come easily now...but it was really hard the first few times I said it, because it was simply NEVER said in our house...felt, yes, but never stated).

And you know what? I really, really hate it when people I don't like feel a need to discuss my bereavement with me, want to know how I am feeling, and want to touch me. Euwwww. Just makes me mad...which, admittedly, is sometimes preferable to feeling sad.

I did sleep better last night -- Ambien is a great drug. If only I hadn't had to get up an hour earlier so my kid could make up a physics lab...sigh...can't wait for the weekend when I can laze in bed a bit; but I'm working 11-7 Saturday night so that will probably mess my sleep up again.

Well, this SOUNDS depressing but I'm actually having a pretty good day. The sun is shining, the work is going well, a friend invited me to lunch, and a meeting got cancelled. Yep, pretty darn good!