This year has been a tough one with the death of my father, family friend and darling dog, so my mom being back in the hospital on New Year's Eve is not surprising and seems like an oddly fitting way to end the year. She was released two weeks ago after urinary tract and bladder infection. Now it's a viral infection causing bad diarrhea.
The season has been a bit melancholy to say the least. I keep seeing reminder of all the special skills that could only be taught by a mom, at least in the 70s. The way I wrap presents is the way she taught me down to how much tape to use and how to fold up the edges--pointy, not square The system of installing the lights on the tree is the technique I learned as her electrical Christmas elf. I feel the presence of my old mom all the time during the holidays as I see her handwriting on the labelled boxes of ornaments and the recipe for chocolate flan and pull out decorations that went up every year in the same spot in the house. But now she doesn't remember the decorations that were hers for decades and looks at them as if she's seeing them for the first time. She tells me they're pretty and asks where I bought them. In the past she was a card sending pro having hundreds of cards reading to go by Dec 1st. We would assemble the cards at night working on t.v. trays as we watched Mary Tyler Moore. She would write and address the envelopes in her amazing teacher cursive and I would stuff, seal and apply stamps. Now I show her cards from friends and family but she doesn't remember most of them. The christmas lights I've strung in her bedroom are too bright and bother her eyes. It's a bittersweet season, but I'm grateful I can have her with me at home for one more year.
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