I Can’t Die Until I Write All The Words

Today’s gem of the day was Mom yelling out, “There’s a fire in the basement!” Without considering the source, panic set in. She was sitting at the dining room table eating her cereal and I was in the sunroom with my SAD light on. Then she made that exclamation and I jumped up LIKE THE HOUSE WAS ON FIRE. Heh. We’ve never had a fire (knock on wood) but I know it’s nothing to fool with. I don’t want to be the person whose house burns down at Christmastime OR EVER. We see it on the news so often this time of year but really all year round. I ran to my mom and said, “What are you talking about?” and she pulled  back the curtain on the window to reveal “smoke” coming from under the window. Again she said, “The basement’s on fire!”  Before my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she was the most trusted authority on if something wasn’t right. She used to have the best “smeller” and could smell anything that most others couldn’t. I inheired this super smeller but I’m sure mine isn’t what it used to be either. So at one time if she said there was a fire, I would’ve believed her and gone down to investigate. This time I knew exactly what the “smoke” was from. Our forced air gas furnace vents out the side of the house. OMG. I could never forget that since over 10 years ago the next door neighbor kids were playing between the houses and stuffed both pipes (intake and outtake) with snow! The furnace quit entirely and we were freezing to death. Hubby cleaned it out and when he told the next door neighbor what her boys had done, of course she denied it. “They wouldn’t do that.” She also said the same thing when confronted with her boys poking our previous dogs with sticks through the fence! Anyway, I told Mom that’s what it was and that there was more than usual of the exhaust coming out  because it was extra cold today. Temps overnight were around zero with windchills of 15 below zero. She seemed to be satisfied with my explanation but it made me do a double take. Luckily, it really didn’t upset me. I’m trying to find the humor in the situation since I’ve been far too serious most of my life. Now that I’m faced with her gravely serious diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, I need to laugh more than ever before. So I try to find humor in everything I can. That’s why one of my favorite sayings is “We’d get along like a house on fire.” I’m ablaze for you. 😉

Back on Sept. 11, 2001 when Mom still had most of her faculties, she was the one who came into our bedroom while we were still in bed (sleeping) that “They’re flying planes into buildings!” She used to lie in bed in the mornings if she woke up before us and listen to radio. She had heard a news report and got scared. We thought she was out of her mind. Another incident around that time had her coming to us saying there had been a “pterodactyl” on the deck. That it was 4 feet high and just huge. That it was taking fish out of our koi pond. We had NO idea what she was talking about. Shortly after that, I saw with my own eyes the pterodactyl! It was a heron. I could understand her thinking it was something prehistoric because it was enormous and not something I’d seen up close before.

One of the things I regret most is not writing Mom’s life story. I’ve wanted to for the past 15+ years and she really wasn’t interested. She was never a big reader and even less of a writer. I don’t know that she saw the value of having her life documented. About a decade ago, I used to suggest we sit down together and tape record some of her childhood stories. She loved to talk about her time growing up on a farm in Minnesota. Now she doesn’t talk about it anymore and I have no way of getting those stories out of her again. All that knowledge and life experience is just lost. I honestly think it should be mandatory that everyone either write their life story or have someone else write it. It could all be kept somewhere digitally (maybe even on the Internet). If people didn’t want it published until their death, it could be their option. However, this makes more sense to me to honor someone’s life this way than with a cemetery plot and tombstone. I don’t know how we’d get people to tell the truth about their lives. To not only curate their successes but their failures, their broken hearts as well as the love they shared, the pain endured in addition to the happy times, etc. I just feel there should be something left (besides offspring) to commemorate the lives lived. Not everyone makes a huge mark in the world (or has kids) but there has to be lessons to be learned from every human being. As I’ve mentioned before, I find everyone’s life fascinating. That’s why I love reading biographies, autobiographies and blogs. I marvel at the different lives they’ve lived, choices they’ve made, journeys they’ve weathered, etc. That is why I CAN’T DIE UNTIL I WRITE ALL OF THE WORDS. I have so much to tell and share. It’s not that I think I have more wisdom to impart or eyepopping experiences to share than anyone else. It’s my way of making a mark on the universe.