Enjoy Now

I read "The Happiness Project" before Christmas. I have a list on my bathroom mirror of the points that resonated with me that I want to keep remembering. One of them is "enjoy now." The idea behind that one is that we all plan to be happy when we write the big novel, get the big promotion, move to the big house...and we forget to take pleasure in the "now."

The last couple of weeks with mom have been really draining, to the point that I ended up in ER for the day last week because my blood pressure and the sustained stress copped an attitude and gave me a wake up call that included a 7am ambulance ride and blood pressure being monitored every 15 mins. I rang the bell on the monitor all but 2 times...but I digress.

My new normal with mom is to let myself in, and then find her sleeping, usually on her bed, still in her pyjamas. She's waiting to die, and dying in bed is preferable to dying on the couch, apparently. There really isn't a medical reason for mom to die right now, but the Harvey stubborn is not something to trifle with, and mom has it in abundance.At one point I had to remind my fastidious, neat freak mom that she needed to reacquaint herself with basic hygiene because she was a bit ripe. I never though I would ever have to tell my mom to bathe.  So for the past two weeks, I go and see mom, and she lies on the couch and tells me how much she wants to be done with this existence, and I hold her hand and say "I know mom." I hold my breath every morning until she answers the phone. And some days I stall about going over because in so many ways, my mom is already gone, replaced by a confused, frail old woman who has given up.

So imagine the joy I had yesterday, when, as I turned the key in the lock, a voice called out-a strong, certain voice-"is that you dear?" Not only was mom having a "non-fuzzy" day-she was lucid, she was completely aware-she was sitting on the couch reading her paper, and could remember who the candidates for the Republican nomination in the US were, and why it was significant that Rick Santorum withdrew from the race yesterday. She hasn't read the paper, watched the news or even cared about baseball for 2 weeks.  We had a nice lunch-she actually ate something instead of just drinking Ensure and going back to sleep. We had a great talk instead of me repeating things five times and blinking back tears at the incomprehension in mom's eyes while she put on a brave face and nodded as if she was following the conversation. She asked about what was going on at home, remembered we'd been at my father-in-law's for dinner on Saturday, wanted to genuinely know what was going on in the world and when I left, she was watching a baseball game. I had my mom back.

I can tell from the phone call this morning that today is not as good. Days like yesterday are going to be more fleeting. Instead of beating myself up because I went a bit late and didn't have a longer visit (I went back to bed yesterday because it's what I needed to do, and I'm paying more attention to my health after the clear warning from the Universe I got) I enjoyed the now and thanked God for a day with my mom back the way she was before this hell we descended into began.

For a few brief hours yesterday, I had my mom back. Enjoy now.