Hello everyone, it has been quite a while since I have updated my blog. Life has taken several different unexpected turns for me in the past year or so, and I am just trying to catch my breath again, or at least learn how to breathe again.I have dealt with a couple of health issues unrelated to Epilepsy, such as SLE Lupus and a heart valve issue that required a heart procedure called MitraClip that was done in July 2024.
Then on August 29, 2024, the absolute unthinkable happened . My mother, who was also my caretaker, was tragically killed in a car accident. She was 79 years old and it was two days before her 61st wedding anniversary with my Dad.This was the most shocking, traumatizing, and devastating thing that has ever happened to our family.
I was 50 years old at the time, and she was healthier than I was. She was spunky, energetic, and had a love for life that most forty year olds don’t have. I was thirty years younger than her, yet she was taking care of me, and I lost her.I feel lost without her.I am blessed to have other family members that help out, but no one can ever fill her shoes.I sometimes feel like I am being passed around from one person to the next just to make sure that my needs are being met, but I know I should feel grateful that I have those options.I don’t want to sound ungrateful for what is being done for me, because I know everyone is doing everything they can. It’s just not the same.
I, unfortunately overheard a phone conversation between my Dad and my Aunt who had recently lost her husband to Parkinson’s Disease, and she said to him that he had the burden of taking care of me now. I was told from hearing that conversation that she didn’t mean it in the way that I heard it, but I took it extremely hard. In all of the years that my mother had taken care of me, she had never referred to me as a burden, she had always said to me that if the Lord let her keep me one more day, that it was a blessing. My mother was not only my mother and my caretaker, but she was my partner in crime, we went everywhere together. She encouraged me to make the absolute most of my life, to have dreams and goals, despite the illnesses.
Losing your mother is such an enormous, life-changing loss all on its own, and you place the complexity of losing your caretaker on top of that, it rocks your whole world. Everything is different. The core person in your life is gone.Your biggest cheerleader, your nurse, your everything! In addition, your routine is completely off track.For example, she and I were the only two morning people in the house, and we would both get up early in the morning and have our coffee together and talk and have us time. For months, mornings were excruciatingly painful for me. There were times when I would just stare at her chair. Now I have a new routine, which includes working out to take up more of the time. Loss is a necessary cycle of life, but when you are someone with a disability that has to depend on others without a choice in the matter, it complicates that cycle so much more.
It has been six months now, since her passing, and I describe the grief as it “comes in waves”. I can be perfectly fine one minute, and then something will remind me of her, and I will be crying the next. We can only take one day at a time, one step at a time, and try to show gratitude for the blessings and happy times that are given to us. Our family has gone through a lot. She was the core of the family, and it almost tore us apart, but we are slowly healing one step at a time, one day at a time.