Changes

This is not the groundhog but were he so he would have seen his shadow. We have had no sun today but the morning was bright with filtered sun and snowflakes. I am ready for spring.

So life is never without its changes. For the last 17 years, since my husband and I moved home to the farm I was raised on, we have cared for my mother to varying degrees.

When we first came my mother could tramp through the woods with us for miles, and every spring we would walk up on the large hill to the back of our property to see the wildflowers. My mother was 69 when we first returned.

Gradually our expedition changed. I began to drive by the road to the back so it was a shorter hike and I began asking my husband or a friend to accompany us in case something were to "go wrong." It has been some years since she could make the hike at all and we have tried to satisfy that loss with drives past wild flowers.
It has become more difficult to take her on outings as her ability to walk has decreased. She now walks relatively short distances with the aide of a walker.

Some years ago the cooking was too much for her and I began making and freezing meals for her to reheat in the microwave and came the day we realized that even that was not happening and home care workers have come in to microwave those meals and "present" them to her. The mechanics of the washing machine and the television baffle her. She no longer heats water in the microwave.

Her memory has changed gradually over the years. It has given me a somewhat cynicle view of history as she speaks with real clarity of incidents that are not as she used to recall them and I wonder if history isn't just to whoever writes it down first.

I have not felt graceful in her transition. I want my mother to be that strong vibrant woman she was. There is that voice in my mind crying "Think!" as she searches for the words and the answers.
And so we are to embark on another journey. On Monday we will move my mother into a local care facility. It is what she wants ( a great blessing there!) and what we want for her but it is another in a string of losses. She is now nearing 86. We will continue to care for her but in a different capacity. No one will ever say old age is kind.