Hit By a Mack Truck of a Memory....

Have you ever been hit by a freight train? A Mack truck? It happened to me last weekend.

I went out for a run because I'm training for what originally was supposed to be a half marathon. However, due to lack of proper training and a nagging knee injury, I'm only training for a 10k now. Totally not the point, but let's just say I was out there getting it done.  While I was out schlepping along, I was thinking that this time last year I was winding down my training for the Freedom's Run full marathon. Thoughts began to wander and I ended up thinking about the day after last year's marathon when I got the call that my mom had been found in her apartment after a fall.

That call and the ensuing week that followed left me reeling. I literally packed and hauled ass to New Jersey and spent the week either with my mom at the nursing home, at city hall cutting through bureaucratic bullshit or cleaning out her apartment. I was literally running on adrenaline and had little time to think about anything but making sure my mom was cared for, both at the time and for the future. She could no longer live on her own, so we needed to make sure her Medicaid application was complete and submitted so that she could remain at the nursing home which was providing her with amazing care.

While at her apartment, my brother and I boxed up all non-perishable foods and donated them to the little food bank her apartment building had. We bagged up most of her clothes and donated those to the mission or Goodwill. We got rid of a lot of stuff that didn't have sentimental meaning and kept more that did. And I cleaned out her linen closet.

Flash forward to last weekend. I was finished my run and ready to grab a shower. It had been a really busy week at Casa Snarkfest with little time for house cleaning or laundry, and so we were running low on towels in our linen closet. I reached the top of the closet, way in the back and found a towel that really didn't look familiar. But it was a towel and I was really smelly, so I brought it into the bathroom and started the shower. It was then that the Mack truck blazed through the bathroom and hit me at 80 mph.

I held that towel up to my face and breathed in the smell of my mom's apartment and I began to cry hard, ugly tears. I never liked the smell of that apartment. Technically, it wasn't the apartment, it was her whole floor that had a distinctive smell, a smell I hadn't taken in in a year, but one that brought me right back to her apartment, sitting in her living room with her watching the Phillies lose. Eating pizza with her. Listening to her coughing the awful, heartbreaking cough that COPD brings. And laughing. There was always so much joy and laughter with my mom. She was hilarious and had no filter. God I miss her. And until that moment in my bathroom I didn't realize just how much I missed that apartment and those memories.

I called my girls upstairs and told them to smell the towel and tell me the first thing that came to mind. Both looked at me like I had 6 heads but they did as I asked and both immediately said "MOM-MOM'S APARTMENT".

That towel is now in the hamper, ready to be washed. Part of me can't wait for it to be clean, but there's a little part of me, way down deep inside, that really hopes that smell doesn't get washed away. Maybe some day. But not yet.

Dreams of My Mother....

I had another dream about my Mom this morning just before my alarm went off. I did what I always do when I'm having a dream and I don't want to wake up: I hit the snooze and tried to fall back asleep and pick up the dream where it left off.

May 19, 1995, She gave me away at my wedding.

In the dream, I was in the band room at 17's high school and I was chaperoning a band trip (as one does). The band director surprised me by telling me that my Mom was also going on the trip with us. I was so excited! I hadn't seen her in awhile and when I saw her in the room, wearing her black coat and looking very much alive I went to give her a hug and my alarm went off.

Stupid alarm clock. And no matter how hard I tried, I could not fall back to sleep and see how the dream ended. But I already know. She was alive and happy in the dream. She was looking forward to hearing hear granddaughter perform.

Sadly, she never did get to see either of my children perform in their respective ensembles. The closest she ever got was watching a video of them from the comfort of her apartment in Atlantic City. She didn't travel much, she gave up her drivers license several years back when she was diagnosed with Complex Partial Seizure Disorder. Taking the bus was too hard because in her later years she was on oxygen 24/7. One of my biggest regrets was not trying harder to convince her to come to WV to spend time with us and see her girls perform. But again, she was in her 70's and pretty much set in her ways, so really there was no 'convincing' her of anything.

This isn't the first dream I've had of my Mom since she died in November. There have been a few others but they aren't enough. My Mom is just out of reach, and I guess that's normal, but God it's hard. I used to call her every day from the car on my way here or there. I get in the car now and I feel like something is missing. It's hard to explain, but it's like a hole that I can't fill. An emptiness.

When I think back on her life, I don't want to remember the struggles to breathe, the time she spent in the nursing home. I want to remember her as she was when she was younger and the COPD hadn't ravaged her lungs and taken away her freedom. I want my girls to remember how vibrant and funny she was. There is nothing that makes me happier than sitting with my girls and reacting to something one of them says and hearing "Mom, that face you just made, that's TOTALLY a Mom-mom face". That makes me smile. I want them to see the "Mom-mom" in things. I want them to remember how life was with her, how she made people feel, how sarcastic she was, and I want them to emulate her.

She was my role model, our role model and I wish she'd come to me in my dreams every night.

Mom's always with me...

I've been seeing a lot of signs from my dearly departed Mother lately. All good, of course. I know she's letting me know that she's doing okay over there on the other side. She's also making her presence known to my Brother as well. He had a dream a few weeks ago where he was at her funeral (we didn't actually have a funeral with a casket, we had a funeral mass with her ashes). Anyhow, in his dream she was lying in a casket in a funeral parlor, and when he went to say goodbye, Mom opened her eyes and yelled "SURPRISE!!" then she was gone again.

Totally freaked him out but in a good way. That was my Mom's sense of humor.

3 generations of us.

I actually had a dream of her around that same time. She was sitting crossed legged on the floor in her apartment, no oxygen tube, healthy as a horse. She and I were having a conversation as we always did when, in the dream, I remembered that she had died. "OMG, I just realized Mom, we thought you died!" "What?" dream-Mom replied, "well I'm here to tell you, I'm just fine." And I have to believe she is.

Yesterday morning I was listening to my Patsy Cline station on Pandora while I was at my desk, and Brenda Lee's version of "I'm Sorry" came on. Oh my God, you guys, I literally started cracking up! Here's why:

My Mom was seeing an alcoholic assbag for years, beginning in the mid-70's until my freshman year of high school. I could write a book on those years but that's a story for another time. I'm writing now about a specific time that he did some boneheaded dumbass thing that pissed off Mom in a major way. The following day after the offending incident, Mom was at work at the Wildwood Water Department back in New Jersey and she was in her office with 3 other women, her boss, some customers and about a dozen water department employees in the back of the shop.

In walked a middle aged woman who asked if my Mom was Jane. "Yes, I'm Jane, how can I help you?" she replied. All of a sudden, this woman, in front of God and everyone in the office, began belting out "I'm sorry, so sorry, that I was such a fool."  But she didn't stop there. She sang the entire song from start to finish.

The alcoholic assbag hired a singing telegram to go to my Mom's office and apologize for him in grand, musical fashion. This woman really laid it on thick with the most dramatic rendition of "I'm Sorry", complete with hand to heart motions and almost tears. My Mom nearly died of embarrassment that day. She said she was mortified. She wanted nothing more than to crawl under her desk until everyone left the building. I believe she was angrier at him for embarrassing her in front of so many people than she was for the actual infraction that originally inspired her ire.

It's funny how you forget things, and then when something is triggered, those things hit you like a Mack truck. I hadn't thought about that memory in ages, probably because it's been so long since I've actually heard that song but man, when I heard it, it really brought that memory back like it was yesterday, and I thought of Mom and smiled so hard. Yeah, I know she's with me. She reminds me often, and for that, I'm so very thankful.

How Ted Danson figures into my Mom's story......

Welcome back, Snarklings. If you're behind on the events of the past few weeks, you can catch up here. I'll wait.

Now that we're all caught up and pleased as punch that my Brother did NOT, in fact, end up in jail for throwing someone through a plate glass window, let's continue, shall we?

By Thursday of that first week of October, we had gotten my Mom settled into the nursing care facility, run around Southern New Jersey like chickens without heads gathering paperwork and trying somewhat successfully NOT to kill public servants. Thursday morning I sat with the nicest, sweetest lady at the Cape May County Medicaid office who took my hand and walked me through the application process and not once did I want to punch her in the junk. She was awesome and kind and everything that the Atlantic County office had not been. Application submitted October 6.

I had been living at the home of one of my life-long friends for the week and by Friday, I needed to get back to my family, yet was heartbroken at the idea of leaving my Mom. I cried when I left her but knew that I'd be back within a few days.

I was back that Sunday and stayed through Columbus Day before heading back the 4 hours to my home in West Virginia. I went back and forth several more times, each time so happy to see her sitting up in bed, walking around (albeit getting out of breath each time. COPD steals your lungs little by little).

The last time I saw my Mother alive was Sunday, October 30th. She had developed an upper respiratory infection that they were trying to treat and her breathing sounded really labored. But she smiled through the visit. 17 had her Homecoming dance the night before and Mom loved seeing the pics of 17 and her boyfriend, all dressed up. We laughed all day and again, I cried before I left because I would miss her until the next time I saw her. I cried every time I left my Mom because you just never know when the last time is that you'll see someone.

I got a call the next day from my Brother that Mom was confused and not doing well at all. The infection was getting worse. She thought it was still Sunday and thought I was still there with her. He said that they were going to increase her morphine to relax her breathing. I spoke with her briefly, told her I loved her and hung up.

I knew that with the morphine increase, she may have been sleeping more or a little out of it so when I called each day, I'd call the nurses station to check on her condition and always passed along my "please tell her I love her" message.

Wednesday November 2, they called me to tell me that her condition had deteriorated and that the family should plan on coming to see her. That's never a good thing.

I went to the school and picked up 17, packed a bag, made arrangements for the dogs to be cared for and off to New Jersey we went. I contacted 19 to let her know and she planned to drive from Morgantown, WV to Cape May County, New Jersey as soon as her last class was over.

The morphine was strong but my mother's lungs were weak. So weak. She was drowsy and not at all coherent when we arrived but I rubbed her back, held her hand and told her how much we loved her. 19 arrived in time to say her 'goodbye' and 'I love you' as well.

As I lay on the couch in the common room that night, the girls slept together in my Mother's room. The Cubs had won the World Series that night and it was one hell of a baseball game. My Mom, had she been coherent, would have loved it. At 3:10, the nurse came in and told me it would only be a matter of time.

I sat there a little while longer, and in my head I said this to my mother:

"You know that we love you, and that we don't want you to suffer anymore. You need to go. You need to be free of this pain, you need to breathe free. It's time. Time to be with your Mom and Dad, and with my Dad. Give them all my love, but most of all, go with our love and be free from this pain."

Minutes later the nurse came back. Mom was gone. She was finally at peace. No more oxygen tubes, no more morphine. No more struggling to take each breath. She was free.

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A few weeks later, we had a luncheon for my Mom's friends and neighbors in Atlantic City. At that time I read a brief eulogy and part of it said this:

"My Mother always hated the actor, Ted Danson. He was in a movie in 1984 called "Something About Amelia" about a father who molests his teenage daughter. After seeing that movie, poor Ted was always referred to as "that child molesting bastard" by Mom. She totally knew it was a movie and he was an actor playing a role, but she said he really was a good actor because she believed he was a child molesting bastard.

Recently my company partnered with Oceana, and Ted Danson is a Board Member there. I couldn't tell my Mom that my bosses had met Ted Danson though. I can hear her now saying: "Why are you guys working with that child molesting bastard?"

As if on cue, Ted Danson appeared on the television in the room in which we were having our lunch. It was a commercial for shopping small businesses on Saturday, but I'm telling you, that was my Mother telling us she was in the room with us. There is no doubt in my mind that my Mom was there with us. We all had a really good laugh, and that's how my Mother would've wanted it.

Mothers, Medicaid Mishaps and More...

Well hello there. It's been awhile since I've posted here, so excuse the dust and the cobwebs.  A lot has happened over the past 2 months. When we last met, I had stolen found a dog, remember? Yeah, the crazy is still around our hood.

But I digress. Let's go back to the beginning of October. I ran a marathon. It was glorious when I was able to stop running. And then all hell broke loose.

I got a call the following day, Sunday Oct. 2 telling me that my Mother had been found in her apartment on the floor, unresponsive and purple. Those of you who are regular readers know that my Mom suffered from COPD and was on hospice care. It was in-home hospice as she wasn't quite to the point where she needed round-the-clock care, but she did have an aide come in every day to check on her, bathe her, help her with laundry and her every day needs. It was that aide who found her. I credit her aide for saving her life and giving us some extra time with my Mom, because technically she wasn't even supposed to be there to check on Mom until the next morning.

They moved my Mom to a nursing care facility that day and I immediately drove to New Jersey to be with her. When I saw her, she did not remember anything that had happened. She had no idea how she ended up on the floor with her oxygen cannula across the room. Maybe that was for the best.

What followed that week was the stuff that nightmares are made of. Mom was receiving the best care possible, but we knew she could no longer live alone in her apartment. We knew, too, that on her fixed income, she couldn't afford to stay at the facility without applying for Medicaid. That's where the fun really began. They told us it would cost $11,000 a month for her to stay. The hospice told us that they would cover the first 5 days of my Mom's stay at the nursing care facility, and the facility told us that if we started the Medicaid application process, she could stay there while the application process was being, well, processed. Our fears that she would be kicked out on the street were unfounded. But we had to act fast, because we had to get the application process started before the 5 days of hospice-paid care were up.

The office staff in the facility gave us the 20 page Medicaid application and some information to get us started. The social coordinator in my Mom's apartment building had a lot of copies of paperwork that we needed but my Brother and I still had a shit ton of legwork to do and not a lot of time in which to do it. We got bank statements, divorce decrees, birth and marriage certificates, bills, and a partridge in a pear tree. You name it, we got it.

Since my Mom lived in Atlantic County, we were informed that THAT was where we had to turn in the application. But when we arrived at the County office building after running around for 2 days like crazy people trying to acquire as much paperwork as possible, we had a door slammed in our faces.

I had checked the County's website and found that the Medicaid Application office was open from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  LIES!

Security told us to go in the first door on the right, go to the end of the counter, sign the clipboard and someone would be right with us. LIES! I did as I was told and when I went to reach for the clipboard, this women stopped me and said "Whatta you doing?"

Me: "I'm signing the clipboard. I have a Medicaid application that I need to submit"

Her:  "OH WE CLOSED."

Me: blink......blink......"What?"

Her: "I said we closed. We done at 3:00"

Me:  eyes filling with tears.........."Your website says you're open until 4:30"

Her: "Oh yeah, well that ain't right. I'm just finishing up some stuff, but we closed"

My Brother: .....ready to throw this bitch through a plate glass window

Me: "But I have a Medicaid application that needs to be submitted and we are under time constraints because my Mother is about to be thrown out of her nursing home if I don't get this application submitted" (always with a flair for the dramatic if I do say so myself) LITERALLY crying now

Her: "Lemme see dat"

She takes the application, looks over the first few pages and says: "This ain't even the right form! Where you get this from"

Me: Full on crying......."They gave it to us at the nursing home in Cape May County"

Her: "Then you got to take it to the Medicaid office down there, not here. We can't do nothing with this"

My Brother:.......one plate glass window away from a homicide charge

She WAS kind enough to give me a piece of paper with some phone numbers for Cape May County's social services department and after a few phone calls, I found out where I was SUPPOSED to take the application (which actually WAS the right form, just the wrong county).

Stay tuned, I'm going to finish this saga tomorrow on the blog....

Boxtops and Breakdowns...

This morning started off like every other morning does. I woke 15 up for school, I made coffee, I woke her up again, I drank the coffee, I woke her up again. Status quo. When I emptied the coffee grounds into the garbage, then took the garbage out to the garage, I found a Boxtop. For those of you who don't have kids in the school system, Boxtops are those little square things on cereal boxes, tissues and other packaging that are worth a dime to your school. I've been cutting them off of Cheerios since 18 was 5. It's almost like my brain is programmed to do so. I collect them and send them to school so that school can make money.

Let me be clear: only elementary and middle schools in our area participate in the Boxtops for Education program. My kids are in college and high school. Yet, still I cut them. Still I save them. I'd hate for a school to lose a dime. When I get enough of these Boxtops I give them to my neighbor who still has a child in middle school.

Let's get back to me in my garage. I saw a Boxtop on the floor. I bent over and picked it up. It was covered in garage goo, so I brought it into the kitchen and I RAN IT UNDER WATER TO RINSE IT OFF. I rinsed off a piece of cardboard so a school would not lose a dime. I have officially lost my mind.

In the past 2 weeks I have run the gamut of emotions. I saw 18 (yes, she's 18 now) for the first time in a month and I didn't think I'd ever stop crying. When I got to spend 4 minutes with her during her break from marching in the WVU football game with the Pride of West Virginia Marching Band, I could not stop touching her. I rubbed her back, I stroked her hair, I kept my arm around her. It was like, if I stopped touching her, it wouldn't be real, she wouldn't really be there. God I missed her.

If seeing her for the first time was the ultimate in joy, saying goodbye to her just a few short hours later was the ultimate sadness. And seeing her sister have to say goodbye to her all over again broke my heart into tiny little pieces.

I saw my mom recently and spent a weekend with her. She broke her arm at the beginning of the summer and I spent a week with her then. This time it was good to see her again under better circumstances. When I saw her this time, she and I discussed her living situation and how concerned my brother and I were that she is so vulnerable in her apartment. She's 77, living alone in a senior citizens high rise apartment building. Many of her friends are gone and we are concerned about her, God forbid, tripping in the apartment and no one knowing that she needs help. So we discussed the possibility of moving her to an assisted living facility. I explained to her that she would still have her freedom, but that there would be someone there to check in on her. It's one thing for me to call her everyday to say hi and chat, but I'm 4 hours away. I am of no help if, God forbid, she falls in the tub. She seemed receptive to the idea and agreed that when the time felt right to her, she would let us know.

Then I began the search for affordable assisted living facilities, and guess what! THEY DON'T EXIST. I'm looking at places in Philly because she wants to be closer to my brother and her own brother. $3500 for a studio apartment in an assisted living facility. $1800 if she wants to share a semi-private room

As I drove to 15's volleyball game last night with a car full of snacks for the team, I chatted with mom. We discussed the unbelievably ridiculous cost of taking care of a senior citizen who wants to remain independent. We discussed my commitment to my children and my family. She told me that I needed to slow down and stop trying to be all things to all people. And I cried. I cried because as much as I say I'm fine, I've got this, I can handle it, I'm lying. I really don't have this. I really can't handle it. I want my mom to be safe, I want the best for my kids, but I need to realize that I am NOT solely responsible for everything and everyone. I need to learn how to say the word "NO" and mean it.

I washed off a Boxtop this morning and realized that I've lost my sense of me. The Boxtop doesn't matter. I'm gone. Put my picture on a carton of milk, or better yet, on a wine bottle. I need to stop worrying about Boxtops. I need to stop worrying if I've got enough snacks for everyone on the volleyball team (including the managers!), I need to take a step back and remember that I'm a very important piece of this puzzle, and if I don't take care of myself, everything else falls apart. I'm going to take a step back and let someone else do the legwork. Let someone else do the worrying for a little while.

And I'm not going to feel guilty if a Boxtop goes un-redeemed. In the big scheme of things, there are so many other things that are much more important than a dirty Boxtop.

Warning: Emotional Train-wreck Ahead

It's been awhile since I've been here and I hope you'll excuse my absence. Shit's been crazy!

I'm warning you right now, I am an emotional wreck. A veritable train-wreck of tears. Seriously, I'm done. I'm sure it's not withdrawal from the antidepressants because I stopped those in early February. No, my friends, I think this is pure Snarkfest emotion from the heart. Shut up, I have a heart!

We lost my Father in law a little over month ago. It was sudden and completely unexpected.

I went back to Jersey to visit with my mom the weekend after Dad's funeral because it'd been way too long and life is too precious not to spend time with those we love. You just never know when your last visit will truly be the last time you see someone.  So I spent the weekend watching the Phillies lose and hugging my mom. That was last month. Yesterday she fell in her apartment building and broke her arm. My heart aches that I can't be with her but with graduation tomorrow there's no way I can drive to Jersey. Thank God for my brother.

As the school year draws to a close, we have end of year banquets, concerts, parties and ultimately, 17's graduation. Yeah, THAT'S not had me in tears. Nope, not me. I've been a emotionless rock. Stoic, solid and.......who the hell am I kidding? I've been crying since December. I'm crying now. I'll be crying until the cows come home.

Do they still say that? Is that still a saying or am I really showing my age?

Whatever, it doesn't matter.  My point is, this is a rough time of year. You know how things change? How quickly we are thrown off course and we struggle to keep ourselves up right, on the right path after a monkey wrench is thrown into the mix? I've been feeling that way lately. Sad at how things don't stay exactly as we want them to. For example, 17 isn't my baby anymore. She's graduating high school tomorrow, and she will be leaving for WVU in the fall. 15 just got her permit to drive, so she's no longer my baby either. And friendships that you think will last, don't.

Life keeps moving. That's the lesson my kids are learning this month. Like Ferris said, life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. Enjoy the time you have with your friends and your family. As morbid or maudlin as this sounds, you never know when it'll be your last time with them. So hug your kids, your parents, your friends, even crazy old Aunt Sally. In not too long a time, they will be gone, whether it's off to college, off to a new job or worst case scenario, gone from your life for good.

Yeah, I'm just a big old all of sunshine today, right? Well, I did warn you with the title of this post. But don't worry about me. I promise I will be out of this funk and back to bitching about stupid people soon enough. For now, I'm going to go home and hug my kids and my dogs and get my  house cleaned up for the graduation tomorrow. Send Kleenex. And wine.

Why COPD Can Kiss My Ass....

I never even knew what COPD was until my Mom's diagnosis a few years back. I wish I had never heard of it. It's a vicious, evil diagnosis. And it's slowly killing her.

She's always been a feisty one, my Mom has. Active, slim, always busy, always running from point A to point B. Growing up, she hated driving, so she walked everywhere. Grocery store, bank, 5 & 10, if she had errands to run, she walked there. I remember when I got my drivers license, she pretty much stopped driving and relied on me to take her where she needed to go if it wasn't in walking distance. She was never one to sit still.

A smoker from the age of 13, she has no one to blame but herself. Years and years of smoking have taken a terrible toll on her lungs. She now has 30% lung capacity. Go get a straw out of your pantry. Now put it in your mouth and try to breathe through the straw. Forever. That's how my Mom's COPD is now.

This past weekend I went up to visit with Mom in New Jersey. On Saturday, we walked from her apartment to a little breakfast place about a block from where she lives. When we got back, I took her out grocery shopping, and when we got back from the store, I took her to church. Those 3 tasks completely wiped her out for the day. Thanks, COPD. Thanks for slowly destroying my Mom's life. She struggles to breathe in the hot weather, she struggles to breathe after a trip down the hall to the trash chute in her building. She struggles to breathe when getting into and out of the car. She's on oxygen 24/7/365. She'll miss my daughter's high school graduation because she's paralyzed with the fear that her oxygen will run out and she won't be able to breathe.

COPD, or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is an ugly, awful disease and it's slowly taking my Mother away from me, one breath at a time. I don't know how many more Mothers Days we'll have left to celebrate together, but I will cherish every moment I spend with her, every phone call, every precious minute I can get. This disease will eventually take her from me. But my Mom's such a fighter, she won't go easily. She'll struggle, she'll battle, she'll fight to breathe. Until she can't breathe any longer.

I thank God every day that she doesn't have cancer from all the years of smoking. But make no mistake, I hate COPD with a passion, because it's slowly, painfully taking my Mom away from me. So if you are reading this and you are a smoker, for the love of God please stop. The minutes of pleasure you get from smoking now will eventually lead to pain, struggle, suffering for both you and your loved ones down the road.

Happy Mothers Day, Mom. I love you and I wish I could breathe for you.