Regrets

Today I went to my Weight Watchers meeting. 

To my amazement, I lost the same .6 of a pound I had gained last week.

That was rather humorous to me, but I'll certainly take that loss over gaining. 

I need to switch things up a bit...I feel stuck. 

I would REALLY like to lost 3 more pounds before my convention next week, 

but that's probably not going to happen, SO -

I am going to hope that being away from home and away from an easy access to food

and switching things up a bit, and the dancing we will do at convention 

that at least I won't gain...a girl can dream can't she???

I ran a few errands and then came home. 

I picked up a binder because I've been wanting to organize 

countless print outs of recipes that need some order.

They have just been crammed into a folder and whenever I am looking for a recipe

I have to go through the entire stack before I find the one I want. 

Now that I got our taxes done, I can focus on other things, PTL!

(That stands for Praise The Lord!)

I cried on and off today. 

I keep thinking I should have been kinder to my mom that last year of her life.

I loved her very much and I loved being able to care for her.

 I wouldn't ever think of putting her in a nursing home, 

even though she hadn't walked for years, and she couldn't get into the bathroom.

The past couple of years she did less and less because she simply wasn't able to do things.

The thing that bothered me the most was that she was ALWAYS in pain. 

No matter what she tried or what she took, she was in pain.
I don't know how she dealt with pain all those years!
I think I would have lost my mind. I don't handle pain well. 

It's made me really work hard to take care of my body the best I can

so that I don't wind up in pain like that. 

My mom was also negative about a lot of things, and she never wanted to go anywhere, 

not even my house which was just 10 feet away from hers.

I couldn't understand that, but I didn't force her, 

I guess, silently, I resented the fact that she didn't want to, or wouldn't try. 

I ended up doing a lot of things out of duty, without much joy. 

That haunts me now. 

It is a blessing that I work from home, so I would run over to take care of whatever she needed (meals, washing, cleaning, etc.) but then I would go back home quickly 

because I couldn't stand to be around her long the way she was. 

I remember often thinking, "God, please help me to make the most of this time with her"

and "God, please give me patience with her, I don't want to live with regrets when she's gone!"

Well let me tell you, I have plenty of regrets. 

I loved my mother! I know she knew that, and I know she loved me. 

It is a challenging task being a caregiver of someone you love. 

I might have rather not had that role, but I realize what an honor it was. 

Still, it got harder with every month, week, and day that passed by. 

For her age she was surprisingly healthy. 

She was not overweight, nor did she have any major health problems.

Her biggest problem was her arthritis and her aging bones. 

That's what caused the pain. The commercials all say to keep moving, keep active, 

so that's what I was always encouraging her to do...

but my mom gave up years ago. She had missed my dad for so long, over 39 years. 

She talked openly about death to me for years. She longed to be with my father. 

I never really understood the severity of her loss for him until after she died. 

Seeing her young and so full of life (in that video I shared yesterday)

THAT was the mother I longed for, the mother who had gone missing many years before she died. 

I'm going to keep watching that video. It reminds me of how she used to be. 

It's how I picture her in Heaven.