Within a few weeks of hip surgery, my mother was doing physical therapy at a skilled nursing facility. Photo 2010 BF Newhall
Barbara Falconer Newhall, June 5, 2010
Ten reasons why I’m finding it impossible to write about my 92-year-old mother, even though she’s all I can think about right now:
- I love my mother, and I don’t know how to write about that.
- My mother is difficult, and I don’t know how to write about that.
- My brothers can read, and they know about this blog.
- My mother can read. So can all six grandchildren.
- My mother has osteoporosis, dementia and a messed-up stomach. She is losing herself, piece by piece, like dandelion feathers floating off in the wind, and I don’t want to think about that.
- My father is dead. My in-laws, Scott and Ruth, are dead. If my mother dies, there will be no more grown-ups left in my life.
- I don’t want to be the grown-up.
My mother and her mother with my brother Jim in an era when hats were taken seriously. Photo by DB Falconer.
- If my mother can die, anybody can die, me included.
- If I write about my mother I might find out something about myself that I don’t want to know.
- I’d rather grab a Clausthaler, curl up with the afghan that once belonged to my mother-in-law, and watch “House” re-runs. Except I’ve already watched every last one of them in the three months since my mother broke her hip.
Note: My mother died on December 18, 2010. I still don’t know how to write about her. One of these days I’ll figure it out. You can read more about her at “Tinka Falconer, Her 93 Years.”
