Dispatches From Hellpeckersville- …Keep Going

I’ve had people tell me they don’t know how I do it. Oh, you’re going through hell, I don’t know how you do it. Well, it’s not like there’s a lot of options on the table, I’m pretty sure Calgon’s not coming to take me away. I don’t know how I do it, or even what anybody even thinks I’m doing besides playing the hand I’ve been dealt. You know, much like Bartleby, I might prefer not to, but I’m not going down that way, I’ve got kids.

Sometimes I sit in bed at night and wonder- how the hell did I get to be the responsible one, the caregiver? It’s not like I ever showed any signs of such a thing when I was young. I never wanted to be a nurse or anything of the sort. I was wild and selfish when I was younger, happily so. Then my Grandmother’s health started to fail. I was about 22. I loved her more than anyone in the world. So, for the last several years of her life I was with her every day, we cared for her at home, but there were many of us. Cousins came in shifts to help, aunts came every evening. She died in 1987, and I went back about my selfish business, but not before making a promise to my Mom. As we sat side by side holding hands on my Gram’s hospital bed in our dining room the day Gram died, she asked me to promise her I’d be there for her, that she would never have to fear going into a home. It’s a promise I’ve repeated over the years.

When we lost our lease and had to leave our house we came here. To save money for a while, we said, so we’d be able to get a better place, we said, but even then she was showing signs of that chicken coming home to roost. That was in 2007, she was forgetful, repeated herself a little, stopped playing some of her computer games. It seems like no time at all before we began the long goodbye and I knew I would not leave this house as long as she was in it.

So, how am I doing it? I honestly don’t know. And I don’t have a choice, really. How could I not do it? Unthinkable. There are days, a lot of days, where I think this is going to break me. This is hell, I don’t know if I’m going to make it, but I’m still here. I still have two kids that need a functional mom every day, I’m trying my damnedest to be that. Just trying to maintain a framework of “normal” in this world of crazy wears me out, but what else is there to do? They deserve as good of a life as I can give them.

And I worry. Every night I worry. What if something happens to Dad? What will become of us? We’ve talked about seeing a lawyer, but he’s dragging his feet–to the point where things will be complicated and probably expensive now. We don’t have money. There’s this house, that’s it. If he had money he wouldn’t still be driving a forklift in a cold warehouse every night at 80 years old. I know worrying doesn’t help, won’t change anything, but I can’t help it.

How am I doing it? How does anybody go through hell?