Blogs are all the rage. Blogs about everyday life. Blogs about giving birth to a special needs child. Blogs about celebrities. Blogs about just about anything and everything. But one thing I haven't found is a blog about how I feel inside when I talk to my mom.

Mom and I have had a relationship filled with extremes. Usually the bad kind of extreme. I am not sure when it really started although I think I was aware as a very young child that she and I did not see eye to eye about life. There was no sensitivity to my feelings or nurturing of those feelings. One of my very first memories was of Mom taking a nap (because she was pregnant, I think. More than likely I was supposed to be napping too.) and I got into her make up. I must have watched her put on her make up because I remember being frustrated that I couldn't see the mirror to put on the lipstick. I did the best I could and then I went into the living room to sit and wait for Mom to see how beautiful I was with my make up on. Sure enough she woke up and came through the living room, took one look at me and burst into laughter proclaiming that I looked like a clown. I remember how hurt I was because she did not think I was pretty; rather she thought I was ugly...a clown. From that moment forward most of my memories of Mom involve conflict. Some conflict that was very public and some that was kept inside and buried deep down inside of me.

As the years have passed, I have come to terms with the mother I have and stopped longing for the mother I truly wanted to have. Instead, my goal in life was to be the kind of mother that I wished for so badly. And I think I was successful. My daughter and I are very close. My son and I are equally as close. They know that I would do anything for them; that they can count on me to listen to them, rejoice with them, cry with them and be their rock if they are struggling with their life storms. There is absolutely nothing that would keep me from them and I rejoice that they know this. Both of them are strong independent people who love others deeply, laugh heartily and are compassionate. But I digress. As the years have passed, I have made my peace with my mother. When I find her annoying or seeing her trying to anger me, I remind myself that she loves me as best she can and the taunting is an old habit that will not die until she does.

But that is the rub. She is dying. Slowly but surely, inch by inch. My mother is dying and I am sad. Why should I be so sad when she has caused me so much anguish in my lifetime? But I am sad because I love her in spite of the mother she was to me. I know her. I understand her better than she realizes. It makes me sad to see what is happening to her.

It all started almost a year ago...really started..yes, she had been declining before that but in slower increments. But on June 19, 2009, my mother had a spinal cord stroke that left her left leg useless. I thanked God that I was in the state when it happened and that I could be there to support her and dad...to talk to doctors and therapists..to understand what was happening and what the course of treatment would be first hand. My sister and I are close and together we would do what needed to be done to support the folks. For once, I would be useful to the family and they would be grateful for my love and support.

Well...yes and no. Old habits die hard and while I may have made peace with my family, it appeared as if my family and I were not on the same page. Those first weeks after Mom's stroke brought so many hurt feelings it was beyond belief. My sister and I clashed. My brothers would not return my calls and Mom shut me out. Totally. Hippa laws protect that patient's rights and she exercised hers to shut me from the direct contact with doctors and therapists. I wondered if I was even really a member of the family. Maybe I was a stranger born into their midst, raised by them but never really "one of them." It was a very painful time.

Time does heal all wounds though. My sister and I reconciled. I talk occasionally to one of my brothers and I talk every week at least once a week to my parents. Mom wants to walk again. Doctors and therapists would tell her that she would. She was in therapy but she wasn't working to learn all that she needed to learn because in her mind, she was going to spring from the bed or the wheelchair and walk again just as she had before she had the stroke. Week by week she held out hope that she would walk. She set dates. I'll be walking by Thanksgiving, Christmas...my birthday she would declare. The dates would come and go and she would sink a little deeper into herself. She blamed the therapists, the doctors, dad, and God. She never put it together that the medications she had to take to control her RA held a great deal of responsiblity for her physical condition. God must not love me she proclaimed to me the other week. And why do you say that, Mom I ask? Because He isn't letting me get better and walk. I cry inside all the while staying calm and rational in the face of her irrationality.

To be continued......