Finding North

Anyone who knows me is well aware of my directional limitations. I can get lost ANYWHERE, even in my hometown of 30,000 where the only highway is a 2 lane interstate.

Moving to Seattle and eventually Portland was an adventure in flexibility, because I was lost every day and as such was perpetually late. I vividly remember a trip downtown when my Idaho bestie was visiting – Melissa had fallen asleep in the backseat and neither of us could figure out how to get home because we couldn’t find the highway. Neither of us wanted to admit defeat and wake Melissa, who slept for two hours only to awake and find us still in the same 10-block radius. Turns out, we’d driven right by the appropriate left turn at least 25 times. (Melissa was immediately forbidden to ever sleep in the car again.) It always seemed like once I could orient myself to something, I could navigate more effectively. Once I figured out the East vs. West division of Portland, I got better. In Idaho, if I know where the freeway is, I can figure out which direction I’m headed. I just need a marker, an orientation point, a North Star.

Life is the same. I can usually figure out where I’m supposed to go and what I’m supposed to do if I can find my marker. And, for better or for worse, my marker has always been my mother. Our relationship has not been perfect – we have definitely slogged through our share of emotional swampland. There have been plenty of times where we didn’t speak and at least one period where I wasn’t sure we’d ever speak again. But no matter how things are going, just about every aspect of my life tends to orient itself around my mom and whatever place she and I are at relationally.

So now here I am and my mom is basically a stranger to me. I can’t even figure out who she is, let alone where I fit in relation to her. She seems more like herself, more lucid, but the stuff she’s saying would not normally come out of her mouth. She kicked my dad and I out of her hospital room today because we pushed her to take a shower. Mind you, this is the woman who refused to take us camping as kids because there were not sufficient places to wash her hands, and she’s not showered in over 4 weeks. Now I’m an unfeeling jerk for trying to talk her into letting me bathe her. Now I’m unrealistic because I expect her to get up daily. Now she is an unfamiliar person. Now I am lost.

I wish I knew how to feel or what to do. I just… don’t. I can’t get my bearings without her. All I know right now I how much I miss her and how desperately I hope she returns to us. I don’t know where to go from here – the “Navigating Emotionally Turbulent Waters” of my Daughter’s Handbook has been torn out. I don’t know how to help her. I don’t know how to reason with her. I can’t even make her laugh, which has never happened before. This feels a lot like blindly wandering through a forest, wishing for a landmark or a compass or a road – anything to just point me in the right direction. It sure seems like I’d be ok if I could only figure out how to find my mom inside this mess. I’m so weary and so afraid.

If you’re the praying sort, please whisper something to God about us. My mom is the most amazing, funniest, smartest, most unique person that was ever created and I can’t bear the idea that such a person might never return. A compass isn’t a compass if it can’t point north. How can a daughter be a daughter if she doesn’t have a mother?