GiGi

There is a 2 hour time difference between California and Wisconsin and a 3 hour time difference from Florida, so I was still sleeping this morning when my brother and children were trying to contact me. It wasn't until I heard the little pitter-patter on my door and Bobby barking to notify me that there was someone outside: Micah was here with Kenni in hand. At the same time, I noticed my phone blinking (I always turn it off when I go to sleep) and when I answered, Leah was on the phone crying and I couldn't get her to tell me what was wrong. Micah interrupted and gently said, "Mom, Grandma died during the night," and as I sat back down on my bed, he held me in his arms, and I began to cry from the loss that you can only feel when someone close to you dies. I was so thankful he was there to hold me and I knew he would for as long as I needed him to. Kenni looked at me with uncomfortable eyes and didn't know quite how to react, seeing her grandma like she's never seen her before.  Micah explained to Kenni how much she would have loved her GiGi (short for great-grandma). As we sat there together, we agreed how painful this was, even though I've been praying lately that God would just take her home to be with Him, so her suffering would end. He did just that, and so I have no reason to be surprised or sad now. But I am.

It's the strangest feeling in the world to be at the top of my birth family. I have always been the head of my own family since I was a single mom, but now I'm suddenly the matriarch of the Schwartz family, too. I guess the baton of sorts has now been tossed to me and I really don't know what all that means, but what I do know is that it's a very lonely place to be. I now feel in some small way, how my mom must have felt when my dad died.

Growing up, my relationship with my mother was at times, very tumultuous. I didn't like or appreciate her when I was young, for whatever reason, and I wasn't the daughter I should have been. It took a lot of years of living before I came to love and understand her for who she was, and I only wish it wouldn't have taken me so long. We waste so much time when we live our lives only thinking  about ourselves.

I won't miss calling her on the phone and her not knowing who I was or listening to her mumbling about things I didn't understand. I won't miss seeing her frail body unable to feed herself or pick herself up to a sitting position. I won't miss the repetition of questions and trying to explain to her the same things over and over again.

But I will miss you, mom. I will miss your strict ways when I was a kid and hated you for it. I will miss your strange sense of humor that really only you understood. I will miss your hands that I used to like to push the puffy veins down on and your wedding ring that I loved to look at and pretend it was on my own finger. I will miss asking you for recipes and telling you about my children and visiting you at the house on Gondola Drive. I will miss all of that and more.

It's only been a few hours, and frankly, I already do...

"He Shall Strengthen Your Heart"

My mom turned 89 today. She's lived a long and mostly difficult life, but has rarely allowed that to prevent her from talking with everyone she's ever met, laughing and trying to make others laugh, with her somewhat unusual sense of humor. In fact, she's still laughing, mostly at herself, and sometimes for no reason at all.

My mother is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease. It used to be simply dementia caused by old age, but Hospice described it differently when I was there recently. She believes she had four children - two boys and two girls: both girls' named "Sharon." In fact, she believes the "Sharon" that visited her several weeks ago, was impersonating the "real" Sharon. She asked me again if I was sure that she "birthed" me; I reassured her that she did. She doesn't know who my children are and is surprised to hear that I'm almost 61 years old and a grandmother. I no longer try to help her understand what's reality and what is not. I just listen and agree and that seems to work the best.

Our conversations always consist of the weather, and how hot it is in Florida, although she hasn't been outside in a very long time. She always asks me where I live and I always say the same thing.  She tells me about the "boss" who works at the office building she currently resides in and I just listen. Today, she asked me if I was one of the six wives of some man she couldn't remember the name of and spent a long time trying to figure it out. I finally told her that I wasn't married, which she was surprised to hear. Each time we talk, she asks me the same things and I give her the same answers because she doesn't remember what the answers are. She does still remember who I am when I'm talking with her on the phone - but she says she doesn't like the "other" Sharon who went to visit her, because she was pretending to be "me".

This disease is the strangest thing I've ever seen. As it's victim, it robs you of all that you hold dear and eventually, all of the memories you've ever made. Your life becomes a shell of the person you once were, and you have no idea who that person was or is now. I find it difficult to put into words how traumatizing it is to watch the complete stripping away of the human mind. It's barbaric, even though she's in very little physical pain. I've often asked myself what is worse: a person who dies suddenly or a person who dies slowly, as my dad did, or my mom is doing now? I don't know the answer to that question, except I wish there was neither.

I've never learned how to adequately deal with aging and death; that's obvious now. It took me a long time to recover from my dad's passing, and even now, it still causes me a great deal of sadness if I linger on it too long. What do people do who have no hope? My trust and hope is in God and in His infinite wisdom and sovereignty. I put my dad in His hands and I do the same now with my mom. I have no idea how people cope without the hope that is in God. Without that, I would be an extraordinarily  miserable person, and probably a drug addict or alcoholic - or worse - always trying to escape the painful reality of life. Life without HOPE is a dismal, desperate existence. Having hope in God is the only real answer that makes any sense.

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord." Jeremiah 17:7 NKJV

"Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who hope in the Lord."
Psalms 31:24 NKJV