Improvement, and reflections on a pity party...

My mom was much improved when my dad and I went to visit her yesterday morning, both in appearance and... how can I put it... there-ness? Since my arrival Sunday, the only indications my mom had given to hint at her awareness of an outside world had been mostly negative: soft howls of pain when joints were flexed, and repeated exclamations of "Stop it!" in response to various activities, an utterance that at first I could not understand, as the words came out as a one-syllable exclamation. Whatever other interaction we had was strictly monosyllabic on my mom's end.

At the hospital, she was much improved, ceteris paribus. She even managed - though I am not sure if she so intended - to crack a joke about the hospital food.

As for myself, I have been acutely aware of my own reaction to the whole scene. Monday, when we were at the emergency room helping get my mom comfortable, I suddenly got weepy, and as the doctor offered me a box of Kleenex, it dawned on me that the reason I was on the verge of bawling was more a personal pity party than anything else.

I had suddenly begun to think that all of this was somehow my fault, and not simply because of one bad decision. I had begun to imagine an entire series of mistakes over a period of years that, had I only done something different at the time, would have resulted in a different outcome and thus, would not have brought our family to this juncture. This is similar, I suppose, to the emotions experienced by the children of divorce. (I was too young for that guilt trip, as my mom had divorced my biological father when I was 3, but I made up for it by wondering - for most of my early life - whether I was somehow at fault for his untimely early death eight states away from where I lived.)

Intellectually, I know that this upwelling of guilt I feel is - in both cases - not based in reality. Nothing I did or failed to do caused any of this. Nonetheless, it's interesting to see how the emotions work in such cases, and in the future I will try to not allow myself to get worked up for nothing.

Cheers...

Pressure!

In addition to the overall happiness associated with my mother's condition (back to where it was on Monday, i.e., uncommunicative and hostile to physical therapy), I am reliably informed that, in addition to having offspring in harm's way in Houston, our properties in that area are insured neither for flood nor wind damage.

I get the feeling that, should the cards fall a certain way, I shall soon be starting anew, from scratch, to attain a state that has taken several decades to achieve. I do so hope I am exaggerating and wa-a-a-y off the mark.

Indeed, I mean nothing personal, but it would be simply grand if Rita's path were to go horizontal, thus allowing the beast to storm ashore south of Houston, where there are few people, as far away from our kin and holdings as possible.

There is, however, little that con be done aside from praying, and if you hold to Christian beliefs, there is that troublesome line in the Lord's Prayer where believers acknowledge that God's will is his own, with the implication that we may not always understand why things happen the way they do, despite prayer.

However, I'm not much of a theologian, just a working stiff.

Lord, keep us all safe and minimize the cost. Please.

Cheers...