Dinner and a drive...
Aug. 21st, 2006 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joegodaHome-made biscuits with hamburger pepper gravy, with just a dash of Garlic in it. Dessert is a home-made brownie. Excellent stuff, by the way.
Tomorrow Brother Sam and I are taking a trip to Indiana to see my mom. Wednesday is her birthday. It's also the birthday of my baby Brother, James.
Tomorrow is ladyh's birthday.
Mom lives in a nursing home in Terre Haute. The entire county that Terre Haute is in, Vigo County, has a smaller population than Tulsa, Oklahoma.
It's been about three years since Sam and I were able to make this trek, and there is a bit of Son's Guilt involved. We're terrible letter writers. Sam sorta justifies it by saying "hey, she's a quad.. she can't open the letters anyway." Doesn't hold water, as I remind him that the nurses can open the letters and read it to her.
When dad left mom back in ... um.. 1976 (god, 30 years ago.. ) she was devestated. She had built her whole life around family, drinking, hating Oklahoma and drinking. Consequently, it was the drinking that was her undoing.
Sam and I moved in with her and supported her for the next eight years, until I got married. Then Sam stayed for just a while and he moved out. Mom was alone for about.. oh.. a year, and then moved back to Sandcut, which is also known as North Terre Haute. She moved back to take care of her mother and father, both of who were pretty old.
Grandad Joe Goda (yep.. where I get the name) had lost an eye, had lost the use of his legs, and was ailing quickly. He went into the hospital the year after my mother moved there due to something or other the doctors decided he had. He called home, said "Get me the hell out of here, I ain't gonna die in no Hospital"... and yes, I have no doubt he said it just like that, he was a colorful character.
Mom went and sprung him from the hospital, sneaking through the front door because hospitals would never guess that patients want out. They got home, he popped a cold one, drank it, said he was tired and went to lay down. The very night he was sprung, he passed, happy and at home on the farm he had worked for sixty odd years.
G'ma Eva, a strong, strong woman, with wonderous shocks of white hair, an infectious laugh and decisive personality passed a year later. Though they never professed to love each other in all the time I knew them, I suspected it was very strong.
Joe and Eva's marriage, by the way, was an arranged marriage, by their parents. Joe's parents worked the land that Eva's parents had. Joe's parents were dirt poor, Eva's were not. The families liked each other and it was their way of forming a stronger bond. Indiana, during those days, were a lot like the Wild West. Lots of mud, blood, and beer.
Mom was born in 1930. She was diagnosed with Catatonia, or so she said. I saw only one incidence of it, so it might be true. She blinked off in the kitchen about 3 months after dad moved out. It was just like her body locked in position, and Elvis left the building.
She says that her parents would lock her in a closet when she was a child, to hide her away from visiting friends and relatives. She also said she spent three years in the Green Castle mental hospital. *shrug* Who Knows? It may all be true. Human beings create their own history... I know I certainly do. If I lived up to the imaginations that are told about me and thought about me, I'd be an incredible person. And I may very well be.
When Joe and Eva passed, a big debate went on about the dispositon of the 40 acres that they owned. Mom said she and her brother, a layabout named Warren, but everyone called Punchy, should split the property equally. They could sell their half, do whatever they wanted. All she wanted was the house.
Of course, fate is not always fair or kind, and Punchy's wife, a harridan named.. umm.. SUE.. Sue, was named the executor of the estate. Why? Because Punch was a MAN. And his wife should have been fair judge of what goes where, right? Hahahahahaha. I'm so silly.
Anyway, the forty acres was sold for 120 thousand dollars. Mom got fifty two thousand. Enough to probably set her up in style for the rest of her life, with proper managment.
Except.
One night, in the dark of her lonely little apartment, she got up in her walker to get the last beer of the day. She tended to go through a twelvepack daily, as water rusted her pipes, milk was something she couldn't tolerate, and tea.. well.. tea was ok, but it wasn't BEER.
She took two steps, tripped, and down she went, Walker and all. The walker folded around her, fracturing her two major trunk vertebra. Arms and legs? Adios, nice to know you.
She lay like that for eleven hours, while her 911 beeper was 15 feet away, in her bedroom. She was found by a thirteen year old boy who came over to help her do her chores, like go to the grocers. His parents were very nice people, very proud of their son. He was a good kid, and I'm glad he was there. Otherwise, she could have died there and not been found for weeks, due to the fact that she had no family, no friends to play cards with. She had nobody there that cared, except this boy.
Why did he do it? Because he was a GOOD PERSON. He did it for free, and because it was the right thing to do. He liked to listen to her rambling stories of her adventures and the life of long ago she had. He liked to help her because he saw it was something that needed to be done.
Farm folks... there's nothing like 'em.
Why weren't we there? Why wasn't I there? God, I ask all the guilt ridden questions. We weren't there because moving to Indiana was her choice, and not ours. We had developed lives of our own here, got married, stuff like that. Still... we looked for work there anyway, and there jus wasn't any.
And we weren't there to take care of her. Please pass the razor and rubbing alcohol.
The nerves weren't severed, just severly bruised. Possibility of recovery? Doctor at the Rehab center looked at me when I asked that question like I was a bug that has crapped on his salad. "And what University did you get your Medical degree from?" He asked. Bastard. Smug self-righteous bastad. By the way, he was one of the founders of the Health South organizaion. If you see a hospital that says Health South on it, you will NOT find me there.
We've offered to find a place up here for her. You know.. it's pretty damn expensive to move a patient on the Medicare system from one state to another state almost 600 miles away. Not to mention, most nursing homes don't really want a patient that needs 24 hour care, who can't lift her arms or legs. I'd love to find such a place near by.. even closer by. Heck, just to show how desparately lonely she is, she even agreed to move back to "God Damned Oklahoma"
Back when I was making fifty thou plus a year, Sam and I used to rent a car with the corp credit card, drive down there and spent most of a day with her. We did that every three months.
So... after three years, where I'm sure she feels her boys have completely forgotten her, we are making the trip again. Our typical 10 hour whirl wind drive there, a visit for a day, and a drive back at night so the total trip takes only 48 hours... maybe a little bit more.
There are days I thank the powers that be for giving me the life I have so that I may learn patience and understanding.
There are days when I go looking for that Nightside cliff to just look out over the sea of humanity and ask, "Why?"
Life is good. Don't forget to wish LadyH a happy birthday!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-21 10:41 pm (UTC)And I'd be an incredible person you are. So there.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-21 10:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-22 12:19 am (UTC)Damn...now I'm wanting biscuits!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-22 12:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-22 12:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-22 12:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-22 12:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-22 02:28 am (UTC)((((( squish ))))))
Now then. *looking straight into his eyes* Lose the guilt. Life is too short for that, darlin'. You did your best. You still do your best. Where is the need for guilt in that scenario?
Love you....
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-22 04:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-22 02:56 am (UTC)Like I tell Wm, you did the best you could with what you knew at the time. End of story. We can only change the present and the future. Go, have as good a time as you can and enjoy being with your brother. I really don't mean this as harsh as it sounds. Black and white do awful things to sincere and heartfelt words.
((HUGS))
Biscuits/gravy/brownies.... Yum....
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-22 04:06 am (UTC)By the way, I use LJ to clean my sleen from time to time. Not meant to do much more than just whine a bit and then go back to writing or finding oddities in life.
But HUGS and you can have some of my biscuits and gravy anytime. And WillBill too!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-22 11:02 am (UTC)We All Do The Very Best We Can. Some Days We Move Mountains, And Some Days We Don't, The Point Is The Good Folks Who Haven't Lost Hope Keep Trying, And The Good Ones Who Have Lost Hope, At Least try To Do no Harm. HUGS! Most Who Know You, KNOW You ARE An Amazing Person. BTW You Aren't Responsable For The Choices Made By Another Dearheart. Let the Guilt Go, And Do The Best You Can. In The End Thats AllAny Of us Can Do.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-22 02:12 pm (UTC)Sending much love to you and your mom. Be safe, and know we're all here waiting for your return.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-08-22 02:29 pm (UTC)