The Swimming Dilema

God help me, "dilema" does not look right. There's no dictionary on my father's comuter's tool bar, so please assume I'd do a better job under other circumstances.

I'm hoping to go swimming today. The problem isn't getting time to do it, it's that I need to be chaperoned in by a resident of the retirement city where my parents live. & the chaperone has to have a gust pass punch card, which my father and I couldn't find. A neighbor has offered to take us today if my father's obsession with upsy-downy tomato bags doesn't overtake us. The pie (which I didn't eat) took up so much of yesterday that we visited Mom as she was finishing dinner and was put to bed, a move that elicited a sound of pain so horrible I had to step into the hall to say Hail Marys, my fallback prayer for the worst moments of my life.

My father and I have begun to make phone calls to friends. Perhaps we sense The Time is coming. I don't know. He says only that he misses "Mommy," his ocasional phrase of enormous affection for my brother and my sake. I have no idea what I'm thinking any more except how sad I am. When I said goodbye last night, even her hands were tucked under her covers, like a child. I was crying -- I hit meltdown yesterday -- and said "I love you so much, Mom," to which she replied, "That's all that matters, isn't it?" Her question was partly wry. I know she wants more than words, more than visits, more than the photo albums I brought that caught her attention. I think she wants to be well and, more realistically, to be released from so much pain. She has crippling arthritis, not life threatening but much harder to live with than her pulminary condition.

And I think, like any scared child, she wanted Dad or me to get into bed and hold her, and warm her.

All I could tell Jim when we spoke later that night was to be prepared. He's coming down next Saturday. I don't like thethought of leaving my father, blind, on his own for four days again.

My food isn't perfect by a long shot. I wanted some wine more than I wanted pie, and I had 2 glasses diluted with water and ice. Jim laughed that it was a fair trade-off and I agree. Slightly lit, I proceeded to make my father bacon and eggs and ate the remainder of the eggs and a bolw of grapenuts, which I'd had for breakfast, the only other meal I had yesterday. That was a "good" food day for me. Actually, it's the best so far.

I keep tellling myself how many people -- you among them -- are pulling for me. This is life. I always say I want a life: well, this is what life is. Draining, bewildering, demanding, fractious, disoriented. I have to learn to BE in it, do what I can and not eat. And if I can do that, then someone else who is struggling and eating might have some hope they didn't feel before. It reads corny, for which I'm sorry. But for now, my livelihood is how I deal with my mouth and my body. I don't have the luxury of certain kinds of privacy.

So there are a few answers: I can't go swimming on my own; my brother isn't here sharing the pie; my father is simply more at ease knowing I'm here to find pie tins and pass on phone numbers; and I'm kind of a wreck.

Thanks to all -- love, fmk