No Lazy Sunday Pix Today

I'm at my mother's house still and I neglected to bring the laptop when I rushed up here so I have no computer full of scenic wonders to share. The only photographs my mother has in HER computer are those things she has sold on eBay--I need to clean a lot of those out since they have sold.

Today was spent allowing my mother to heat her own lunch and dinner to see how see manages, and taking her to the store to buy a pair of shoes to watch how she negotiated the self-checkout line. She's better, less shaky and a little more clear mentally, but she's not my mother yet; that active, vibrant, fast-walking, able-to-Indian-squat woman who could go from 6AM to 10PM without pause. I'm afraid that woman is long gone because she neglected her self-care far too long and the lack of oxygen to her brain from the emphysema and the abuse of alcohol have caused changes that can't be repaired. So now I wander the house thinking "she needs a handrail for the front and back steps, we need to move the extra twin bed from the bedroom because she hasn't the strength to reach around the bed to change the sheets, the bath tub is dangerous without a grab bar at the edge of the tub, a smaller laundry basket would make it easier to go downstairs to the washer," etc. Our parent/child relationship is changing and I'm not comfortable with that yet. I'm not ready to be the parent to the woman who stood by me when I locked horns with my father over my choices of who to befriend and how to behave and what to think, the mother who accepted my craziness and understood that it was acting out, feeling my oats, finding my way. I think that woman is gone and I hate it.

I hate it.