SilverSugar

Hey all. I wanted to make give a brief rundown over what's been happening in my life recently, for those who don't follow my Discord, or for those who missed it. Not really for sympathy or anything just out of...I need to just put this out there eventually, so maybe it's better just rip the band-aid off? If that makes sense.

Since late December I was still dealing with the stress of a relatively new job, a damn cold, and my mother was really not feeling well at all. Her doctor was absolute garbage and told her to her face when she came crying about the pain she was in "well, what do you want me to do about it?!" I was livid when she told me that. So, it came to pass that on Christmas Eve I ended up calling the paramedics for her and she wound up in the emergency room. She stayed over night and we thought she'd finally be on the mend. When she got home she was doing her best but by the 28th I was dragging her back to the doctors (a new one this time) and insisting she get properly checked out again--they referred her back to the ER. I drove her there myself. Somewhere in between all of that I got laid off. Something to do with my job "being dissolved" and "[the field] is always changing so we [the company] don't plan to keep that position open anymore." I found out later that they'd posted an add the day before looking for someone else to fill my roll. So I have no idea what the fuck I really got fired for because they said repeatedly that it wasn't due to my performance. Regardless...I wasn't taking things well enough already.

Come early-to-mid January, I finally over my stupid cold and could freely visit my mother in the hospital although I was still struggling to get the house together for her return. Her condition wasn't getting much better and she ended up needing emergency surgery. So the house needed to be super clean, if not freaking sterile, for when she got back. This was a lot to handle, but I had a friend come help me out a bit and I thought we were managing well, all things considered. It was Mid-January when things started becoming...very bad. Bad enough that I was woken up by a nurse at 3am calling me to the intensive care unit and asking me if my mother had an advanced care directive. I was shaken up, and rather in denial about how bad my mother's condition really was. She was moved back into the hospital proper in a day or so, but now we were all talking about her Will and all this paperwork, and my brother was visiting more often, and while talking with the staff there was always this tense undercurrent but no one wanted to say what it was really about...

During the final week of January, my mother texted my not-related-to-me-by-blood-but-is-still-family Aunt from two states above us in a near panic saying she needed help. Two days later my Aunt was having me pick her up at the air port. We started cleaning the house in an even greater hurry. The conversations we were having at the hospital weren't about my mother coming home in the same way as before... Someone mentioned bringing in the Hospice. I remember that word hitting me like a brick; like being punched. As far as I'd ever known...people don't come back from hospice care. I told my brother over text. I couldn't call him. If I called him; I'd break down. I couldn't break down. I had so much to do and no time to think. My family and I rallied between trying to get things together at the house, with my mother's Will--her wishes, and just spending time with her when we could and when she wasn't completely exhausted. She was getting weaker and weaker, and confused, and just so tired...it seemed like it was coming out of nowhere... She couldn't eat, her pain was never below a 7, she struggled to sleep, and nothing seemed to be helping her to improve. With family together and a team of staff impressing upon us that what we were doing now wasn't to treat her, but to just help her stay comfortable... She just had a last piece of paper to sign authorizing her to be let out of there.

Alone with my mother, I told her it would be okay. I told her we'd get her home like she wanted. I told her I loved her. I told her that this whole situation was bullshit. How much I hated it, how much we all wished this wasn't happening. I told her how I'd make damn well sure her only two grandchildren, my brother's two wonderful boys, grow up knowing how fucking proud their grandmother was of them and how she loved them more than anyone in the world. How I understood that she was in pain and that I understood what she was going through. Because it wasn't just her body breaking down on her... I told her I understood; because I believe I do. Depression is a lying bastard. And I know what it does to us. She was just done. I could see it. I told her it was okay to go. That I knew because of the faith she had that eventually this would all be okay... She could go. I made a promise to her that I would do my best to live...because everything my mother has ever done was for me and my brother. It was so important to her that we be alright. Besides, I told her, I needed her to come home and teach me how to make her spaghetti and her stew. That made her smile. The first one I'd seen in weeks. I got her to sign the paperwork we needed. We planned to get her home Tuesday.

By the second day of February, Friday, we'd managed to get everything mostly together. We'd had Hospice come in and set up everything she'd need...we were finalizing everything and trying to scramble for a few last minute repairs on Monday. I'd gone out to Walmart for some of the last supplies we needed, and spend and hour just picking sheets...the ones I thought would literally be on my Mother's death bed. All my Mother wanted was to come home and not be in the damn hospital anymore. She wanted to die at home. Although none of us were willing or able to say it outright. We were still holding out on the hopes that somehow the doctors were wrong, or at the least she'd stay with us a few months longer...

My brother called me early, waking me up, on the 3rd to tell me she was gone. I'd never heard him cry before. I mean sure, he'd tear up during certain movies--and I being the good little sister I am--would tease the shit outta him but this... I was sad to hear the news, sure, but my heart broke for him. My only brother and my two small nephews who will never know what an amazing woman their grandmother was first-hand. ...she was only 66...

So now, I'm just doing my best to keep going. The way I put it...I'm managing. Even though this month, on the 25th, I turn 30. I never wanted to live this long. I know I've talked about it before. I thought, from what I'd learned about myself over the past few years that I could somehow manage in spite of it all but so many of the dreams I once had lay ruined at my feet, I've found and lost love...and for all the times we fought or had our differences, I still care deeply for my mother, but in the end nothing could save her. Death is inevitable. My heart feels like for every band-aid I stick to it, another piece falls off... And yet, I persist. So, here's to my upcoming 30th birthday. I'm going to try for 40. I promised after all. I wish I hadn't.

1.) Just wanted to make sure peeps know the next Sketch Round of the PaperChainProject is live Here!

2.) Also wanted to remind peeps that I still have some adopts who need homes: