A minute...

"It's been a minute" is what people say when they don't recall how long it's been since something happened. It's certainly been a minute since I've posted anything here.

In September of 2024, I found myself with my 93 year old mother moving in with my husband and I. Not by choice, but as a result of circumstances beyond her control. Formerly, an extraordinarily capable woman, Mom had been subjected to a stress most people couldn't have tolerated. After Covid hit, the house she and my father built became no longer hers alone. Someone else needed part of her space, someone with a different schedule from hers, different interests from hers, different cooking styles, different tastes in general. Mom's life was transformed. In her own words, "I lost more than my privacy, I lost my freedom."

For the first several years, the house remained Mom's sole responsibility, the thing she held onto, took care of and tried to keep clean on a daily basis. All the things she had done for almost sixty years, But, it was no longer a respite from the changes in society and the struggles of aging, no longer a source of pride. She clung to her routine as long as she could, sacrificing her freedom and her strength to meet the needs and wants of someone else. But, when her memory began slipping and her body grew more frail, the stress seemed to overwhelm her capacity to cope with life. Her light began to fade. She was convinced she wasn't capable of anything anymore and the confusion of defeat settled in.

The day Helene struck, my phone rang loud and clear. It was as if the storm itself had dialed my number. Angry, demanding action. I needed to get there immediately. Hours of driving through torrential rain, trees down across every road, power lines lying criss-crossed like wind blown spider webs. At each roadblock, first in my thoughts, was the deadline to get to Mom before she was left alone. The shock of seeing a massive oak perpendicular to the peak of what we called "the family room." The cupola and weather vane that had served as a beacon home for over 50 years lay shattered in pieces across the roof and sidewalk below. In the midst of the chaos, what will remain forever frozen in my mind is the vision of Mom's tiny, pale face peaking from beneath one of those cheap woven blankets that are tossed haphazardly over every Southern home's sofa or recliner. Her eyes wide with shock and fear as she stepped from the doorway onto the deck, bending and twisting her body around the broken branches that blocked safe passage away from the waterfall pouring into the family room. Once outside, the ceaseless downpour immediately soaked through the coverlet, gluing tendrils of snow white hair to her rain-soaked cheeks and drenching the tiny bag she clutched as if it held her most valued possessions. Even as she made her way through the tangled mess of limbs and broken boards, she peered in every direction, trying to assess the damage and begging for one last look before we left. It was as if she knew things would never be the same.

Five hours for a ninety-minute trip... back-tracking, asking locals for the best route through their town, making u-turns in the driveways of people we didn't know, all of whom wore the same bewildered expression as Mom. We had no idea what lay ahead...contractors, insurance agents, learning the impact trauma has on a ninety-plus year old's mind.

What a long day. The first of many as we traveled the road away from the destruction of Mother Nature and into the devastation of dementia.