Ode to My Family -- The Cranberries

I keep waiting for someone to ask me what gift I got for my Mom for Mother's Day. Or I guess I am just waiting for the opportunity to say, "My Mom's dead, but thanks for bringing it up, you jerk!" 

Three years ago today my Mom passed away. Normally I would have an amusing anecdote to share, but I'm not really feeling it today. Instead I will just tell you that if your own mother is still around, make sure you tell her to get her ass to the doctor for regular women's check-ups. Also, take your own happy ass to the doctor if you think there's something wrong, and make sure you have regular check-ups as well.

The worst thing about my mother dying is that, in retrospect, it might have been prevented if she had had adequate health care. We can always look back and say, "I wish this..." or "If that..." In reality, we will never have a different outcome. All that we can do with this experience is learn from it.

What did I learn from this experience? First, I learned that watching your own mother die is harder than watching someone else's mother die. But watching my husband's mother die was just as traumatic to me as watching my own mother die. And, while I knew that the outcome of both was not good, I hoped, right to the very end, that by some miracle, my mother would be all right. With my husband's mother it was a little easier to accept that she was going to die, but with my own it was nearly impossible. Now, I guess, I know how he must have felt while his mother was dying--because that's how I felt when my own mother was dying.

I also learned that my brain is weak. Not like incompetent or unintelligent, but that one traumatic experience after another has forced me to the edge of sanity, from which I am now clawing my way back. I also know that, aside from soldiers, women are most likely to develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder following events in which they experience trauma.

I learned that the health care system in America is seriously fucked. Period.

The hardest lesson that I'm still learning is living without my Mother.

Happy Mother's Day.