Once Time is Gone, You Can’t Get It Back

 The last ten months of my mother’s life, I so often heard that I needed to place my mother in respite care and go on a vacation or put her in a home.  The more I was told to place her, the more I refused.  As for respite care, I knew that the time was coming when I would have plenty of time to have a break from taking care of my mother.  Were there times I got frustrated?  Oh yes, both with myself and with mom, mostly with myself as sometimes I could not switch it up fast enough.  I do have some regrets from when I was taking care of my mother, all of them are about how I could have handled some situations differently.  Having mom go with me all the time really wasn’t new.  It was nothing for either of us to ask the other if they wanted to go wherever wanted to come with whoever was going so when it got to the time that Mom couldn’t be alone.  I generally enjoyed Mom’s company.  We liked a lot of the same things.  It was impossible to get some people to understand that.

I so miss my mom.  It so nice for people to say, you should take a week off and she won’t know the difference.  Really?  It isn’t about trying to make memories for my mother to remember, she couldn’t, however, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t be happy.  It was about the moment.  All day long, it was about mom and moments.  I would tell mom how much I loved her, I would ask her did I tell you how much I love you today, where’s that pretty momma smile, things like that.  I needed for her to know she was so loved.  I took her out to eat, even when I needed to help her eat.  Yes, I got some looks, I am sure I may have gotten comments, I am partially deaf so I really didn’t hear too many.  I didn’t care.  I was focused on my mother.  I read to her.  We listened to the music she loved.  Did I have days where I had bad migraines and where my fibromyalgia was horrible?  Of course, we dealt with it.  Sometimes, when I needed a nap because I was so exhausted or my migraine was horrible, she would watch TV or she would take a nap in her room while I napped.  If it was a super bad day, one where I couldn’t do anything, I was lucky enough to have friends to come and take care of mom while I rest.

Best Professor Ever ar Wayne State!!!!

  I had to take two accounting classes for my major when I was working towards my Bachelor’s Degree.  Accounting I, I had a good friend in the class with me.  I was rather glad of that.  We rode to school together several times a week as it saved on gas and on wear and tear of our vehicles.  We alternated weeks.  When it was my week, Dan still drove, he just drove my car.  It worked out well.

The way our Accounting I Professor taught the class did not mark sense to me.  It seemed so backwards to me.  At the end of the class, she would assigned the next class homework, then, at the beginning of the next class she would collect the homework before she would explain how it was supposed to be done.  It never mattered how many times I read the chapter or section we needed to read to do our homework, it did NOT stick in my brain at all.  I was very annoyed by that.  Naturally, now I know I have ADHD so it makes sense to me know why I couldn’t understand what to me was backwards learning processing.  So, needless to say, I did not get a great grade in that class.  I didn’t probably should have retaken it.  I just didn’t want to.  

The next semester, I was in Accounting II.  This was called Managerial Accounting.  At the end of the first class, as usual, I waited until most everyone was finished speaking with the professor before I went to speak with her.  For every class I took at WSU, if the class was in a big auditorium type classroom, I would always ask if it was okay for me to record the lectures as I most likely would have difficulty hearing in the b8g hall.  Only once did I actually come across a professor who refused to let me.  He commented that if I was that deaf I should attempt a school for the deaf.  That was about the one of a handful of classes I was allowed to drop and Mom was not upset by it.  Yes, I did pay a significant amount if the tuition myself with my own money earned from jobs, however, she was the holder of said money, which was my choice as I knew at that stage in my life I could not guarantee that it would not be spent foolishly.  

My Accounting II Professor was so awesome.  When I was speaking with her about the problems I had with Accounting I.  The Professor noticed that I was not dressed similar to the rest of the class.  Most business majors at that upper classmen status where suits to school or some form of business attire. I could not.  First, I really didn’t own any business attire and two, even if I did, I did not have time to change from school to lessons or classes after I was finished with my WSU classes.  The Professor asked me what my major was and I said, Music Business.  She said that explains a lot.  She then asked if I go straight to a dance class from school.  I said yes.  I both teach and take dance classes right after I leave school.  She smiled.  The Professor told me the bun on the top of my head definitely gave me away as she sees that bun about twice a week when her girls go to ballet.  The Professor did make me promise not to burn the book before the end of the semester.  Naturally, I promised.  I wouldn’t burn my book anyway.

It was really neat that semester because the Professor came to a couple recitals that I participated in and to the choir concert where she sat with my mom.  The hardest thing in the class was getting used to ignoring the stares I got from some of the other girls in the class.  It took about three weeks for me to be able to ignore them completely.  The other girls in the class did not approve of me so much because I did not wear a suite or business attire.  There were about three who were the worst.  I sat near the front row as it really made a difference in whether I could hear or not, and sometimes the Professor would say something to me about singing or dancing or piano just to irritate those three girls.  She was a really nice person.

You never know who you will meet along your journey, do you??