Thunder and Lightning

It's been a long time since I've been in a thunderstorm -- and a severe thunderstorm at that. Janelle and I watched it for about five minutes last night. It was beautiful. The whole sky just lit up and then the zig zag of lightning would appear. There wasn't that much thunder, but when it happened the claps were was impressive.

I could be all poetic, I suppose, about what this all meant on the last night we were together, but I refuse to have this turn into a "first day without Janelle" "second day without Janelle" type blog.

You're welcome.

What it does remind me of are the moments of complete peacefulness before some awesome attention getting storming takes place. There wouldn't be this much green and beauty and water without the drama of thunderstorms.

Which brings me to my mother again.

I spoke to my auntie about her harshness, and to my somewhat strange delight (the kind of sick pleasure at knowing you're not the only person suffering under the abuse of a tyrant) we all agreed she's been a bit out of control to all of us. We've all decided that a sort of intervention might be needed. My auntie has a plan: we should suggest that my mom says "honey" after her orders. It might sound a bit better if, for example, my mother says "what did you say, HONEY?" instead of "what did you say?" I don't know when the exorcism (sorry, but it does seem like she's possessed sometimes!) will take place, but I do know that I'm currently in ignore mode until such a conversation takes place.

I did observe her for awhile with Janelle's help; she seems very content to be in her garden, tending to every row with frantic patience or in the kitchen cleaning like an obsessed driven woman. She cleaned out several drawers today while guests were there visiting. The guests were her cousins who live near by, so I thought she would be more interested in the conversation, but instead she cleaned (with soap and water) the drawers where the ziplock bags are stored. That's her comfort zone -- the place where she knows where things are and can keep track of what needs to be done. There is no taxing on her memory and when I think about that, I do feel compassion for my mom instead of anger over how she treats me. It's really not at all personal -- she treats everyone like that.

I think that my mom's memory is worse than we originally thought. She chooses to clean so she doesn't have to track conversations, or remember names or people. I noticed her dementia this year when she visited in California and under stress I'm sure it becomes even worse. We need to talk to her about it, and I'm not looking forward to the confrontation or the moment my mother realizes she's the focus of our concern and criticism. She will most likely become defensive, and then become very vulnerable which she'll combat by shutting us all out and weeping for an hour or so in her bedroom. But once it's out in the open we can all discuss how we are going to deal with it.

My aunt and uncle talked about the radio next to their bed that alerted them of the storm that was coming last night. The beeps grew louder the closer the storm got to our county. I feel like the moments where my mother has forgotten things I've told her (sometimes several times a day,) her constant misplacement of her glasses and blaming my father for misplacing them, her lack of participation in conversations, her anger -- are all beeps growing louder in intensity.

Maybe there's a beautiful Minnesota waiting inside of her -- and all that is needed for it to come alive is a little bit of water and noise -- a little bit of lightning and thunder.

Or maybe this is the calm and the storm has yet to hit us.