Tuesday, March 23, 2010

3-26-2010

Reading back in my blog, I am in a much better place than I was one year ago. I am forever changed, though. Hard to imagine how I survived that chaos: the mental and physical stress. Trying to live a normal life with so many assaults and so much burden of choosing what is right for someone else is... insane.

Things are much more calm for me now. The phone and mail no longer scare me. I don't bring a phone to bed with me anymore.


Spring is springing all around... wait, that isn't how the poem goes:



THE RAIN is raining all around,




It falls on field and tree,




It rains on the umbrellas here,




And on the ships at sea.







--Robert Louis Stevenson

Mom liked poems. I think of her often. I try to focus on the good things she did. We butted heads terribly at times. She made plenty of mistakes in her life and I was not that great to live with either. I think about who I am and how I have been shaped by her life and actions.


I've been hearing robins, but haven't laid eyes on any. The tulips are poking through the ground. A plant, included with fresh flowers from the funeral, survived and is growing outside my back window. It made me smile to see it. I am getting antsy, checking on my rose bushes to hope for new growth. Life does go on....


Mail continues to come to the house for mom. The magazine subscriptions and pleas from charities she gave to are relentless. A few stray bills from the nursing home and the healthcare system. She has been gone now for 10 months. You would think with their fragile clientele.... nursing homes would be proactive in getting those bills out. Wisconsin law states that the heirs are not responsible for bills 30 days after death. Once the estate has been closed, no one is responsible... they have to eat those outstanding bills. Still not sufficient punishment for making my mom's days miserable with poor care and inattentiveness.


I'm still sad when I drive past these institutions, knowing there are hundreds of individuals sitting in there. It is like a prison sentence for your last days on Earth. Makes me think about my own future. We've just passed the new and improved health care bill. Will this new way of doing business make things better..... or will it be that much worse?