Karate Mom

12.16.2008

I've been digging through some boxes trying to find a picture, and I finally came across it.

I remember taking karate when we lived in the trailer park outside of Florence, so this pic would be sometime between 3rd and 6th grades. I want to make it around 1979, so that's what I'm going to do.

The class was taught by one of the guys who lived in the park who had developed his own karate style - a mash-up of styles he had learned along with some Bruce Lee inspired moves. Mainly he was an excuse to get all the kids in the park together and teach a little discipline. A couple of Moms joined us in the class in the beginning, and mine was one of the gaggle.

Being the young rebel that I was, I didn't want a black gi or a white gi. I looked in the catalog and saw a red gi, so that's what I got. What the hell was I thinking? Chunky 10 year old kicking and punching in a set of red pajamas.

Looking back, I'm not sure how long Mom stuck with the karate. I got a yellow belt and green belt before quitting, and I think there were 2 levels of yellow belt. I don't remember how long there was between belt tests, so that's not a very good measurement. Just under 4 years ago I took a karate class with Jerry and Keith, and stuck with it until I advanced enough that my knees couldn't take the twisting and pounding that were required for the moves. Oddly enough, I had made it once again to green belt, although Leonard was ready to promote me to the next level (I think that's blue belt). I had missed a lot of classes due to my knees and back being messed up, so I didn't feel like I had really earned another belt promotion.

I keep telling myself I'll go back one day, and maybe I will. Until then, I can always look back at kicking Mom's ass when I was 10! If only we didn't have those huge smiles when we were kicking asses.

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Post Xmas Party Sniffles

12.14.2008

This past Saturday was the Spiritus Christmas Party which I attended with Gina. The previous Saturday was the Westar Christmas Party which I attended with Gina.

I have a sinus cold and have been sniffling and sneezing my fool head off for two days. Gina's been doing her best to take care of me. She's a sweetie.

I had a similar cold about this time last year. Since it's not time to watch A Christmas Story I've instead been watching Star Wars (Episodes 1-3) while convalescing on the couch. It's times like this that having an expansive movie library pays off.

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My college care package

12.12.2008

In the Spring (I think) of '88, I was away living the college life with Jer at Birmingham-Southern College, a place I had no right to be but I wouldn't take anything for the people I met there. But I digress. I had finally reached the stage where I didn't come home every weekend - I think I might come back home once a month by that time. One afternoon I made my way to my mailbox and found a large, puffy envelope awaiting me with "Mom" as the return address. I opened the envelope and pulled out a pale pink shirt!

Note 1: It was the 80's. We watched Miami Vice. Pink shirts for guys were cool.

Note 2: All my life Mom has sewed (sewn?). She always wanted to make me clothes, mainly because it was cheaper than buying them. When I was 18/19 I worked out semi-regularly and had not put in the time and effort to develop the gut I lug around now. I've always had broad shoulders, and finding a shirt to fit said shoulders was difficult. Mom took it upon herself to drag me into helping her construct a shirt pattern that would actually fit me. It took the better part of a year and parts of 5 or 6 patterns to make the shirt I wanted, but we finally got it together. to top it off, I was particular about the type and weight of the fabric of the shirts I would wear - a medium weight cotton is what I preferred. Hey, if Mom's going to make me help her then she's got to pay the price!

... and now back to our 20 year old story ...

I got back to the dorm room and looked at the shirt. Cool, a new shirt from the pattern me and Mom made! Button-up, button collar, oversized sleeves. Two big chest pockets. I pulled it on and started to button it up when I stopped.

The buttons were on the wrong side.

Mom had just made me a pale pink womens shirt.

I went directly to the phone and called up Mom. "Hey Mom, I got the shirt!"

"It already got there? That's good. Do you like it?"

"Uhm, yeah. Ah, did you know the buttons are on the wrong side?"

You could hear the astonishment in Mom's voice. "Really? No! I've been doing so many womens clothes I just never thought about it. I'm sorry!"

"That's ok, I don't think that'll keep me from wearing it."

I wore that shirt way past the cancellation of Miami Vice. I wore it until there were holes in it to where I couldn't wear it anymore. Nobody ever noticed that the buttons were on the wrong side (unless I told them, accompanied by this very story most of the time). If anybody had noticed, it wouldn't have mattered a bit.

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Playing along

12.11.2008

Mom was also one of the people that I never felt I had to talk down to. Yeah, sure, I was smarter than her and we both knew it (I'm not conceited, just showing off how good Mom raised me!), but often times I think Mom would say something to set me up for a smart comeback that would make us both chuckle. At least half the time I would make something up, and I think she would go along with it just to see how long she could fool me back.

Mom's anxiety meds would lead to some short-term memory loss, usually around 20-40 minutes after taking them she would get frustrated for not remembering something silly, which would in turn make her a little anxious. One of the first things I would do when I went to see Mom would be to ask her what day it was. In the beginning she usually got it wrong as she had no way to keep up with time since she was in the RV the majority of the day. The weather had been getting colder and the days were more overcast, so mornings and evening looked deceptively similar when you're taking a lot of naps and get awakened to take some scheduled meds.

There were 4 or 5 of us taking turns staying with and helping out Mom. She had started to overcome her confusion on what day it was by remembering the schedule that certain people were on. I would show up on Saturday and head back home on Sunday, so when Mom first say me and I would ask her what day it was, she was pretty sure "Saturday" was the right answer. After a couple of times of seeing she had that figured out, I started throwing in "morning or night" which she managed to figure out most of the time, too. Finally I asked her "ok, so what month is it?" and she would figure out the right month.

Silly little questions, but she would play along with me.

Sometimes Mom would just say things that would make you wonder what was going on in her head - maybe she was half asleep and dreaming? More often than not these were little things that had gotten her mental schedule out of whack since she may have been taking a nap or some such. One afternoon Terry had left to go to Wal-Mart, and 15 minutes later Mom asked me if Terry was supposed to get back from work that night. I would explain that he wasn't at work, just at Wal-Mart, and you could see the frustration in her face that said "I knew that".

My favorite one of those (whatever it should be called) was one Sunday morning when Mom woke up 30 minutes before the time to take her morning meds. She got up and was drinking some Ensure. As i sat down on the bed next to her she looked at me and asked "Did everybody show up for the wedding?"

"What wedding, Mom?" I asked.

She closed her eyes and shook her head a couple of times. "The wedding that didn't happen." You could see the silent "Duh" added by her eyes as she went back to her Ensure."

"It's not as much fun if you don't play along, Ma". I should have made up something really good about that wedding!

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Mom was on some new drugs!

12.10.2008

A couple of months back, Hospice had changed around the drugs that Mom was taking and we were all getting used to the new combination and schedule. Mom was still able to get around the house and go outside for a cigarette when she needed one, but often times her brain was acting a little faster than her body could keep up with.

One Saturday I took Gina up to see her and Terry, and my grandparents and Mom's youngest sister were up for a visit too. Mom was having a bad day and spent the majority of everyones visit in bed/napping. Terry was taking time to catch everyone up on what was going on, especially with how to help out on giving Mom her meds. Besides her chemo (or whatever was in both an ointment and a suppository she took), she was also taking meds for anxiety, nausea, and pain.

The day progressed and Terry had to go to work while grandparents and aunt went back to Alabama. Gina and I got Mom to eat a potato from Wendys in preparation of giving her the dinner-time dose of meds. About 15 minutes after eating she downed a handful of pills. About 15 minutes after that I noticed she was getting fidgety. "You want to go outside for a cigarette?" I asked. "Yep" she replied, then quickly stood up and headed underneath the kitchen sink.

From underneath the sink Mom started pulling out cleaning supplies. I looked at Gina and both our eyebrows arched in a silent "What the hell?". I looked again at Mom. "What'cha doing, Mom?" I asked. "Got to get my mask" she answered back. What kind of a mask do you need for a smoke break? Gina quickly thought and said "Lucy, it's cold outside so why don't we get you a heavier jacket." "Ok" said Mom, and she stood up from the kitchen sink and started heading up the stairs to the bedroom. Gina cut her off and headed into the bedroom, where mom directed her to the closet with a heavier jacket. Gina brought it back and we bundled up Mom. We headed out the door when Mom stopped and looked at me, "Have you got the key?" she asked. "We're just going outside, I don't think we need the key, Mom." With that she nodded her head and went out the door. She was starting to head past her outdoor chair and table when I distracted her with her pack of cigarettes. "Here Mom, sit down and have a smoke." I can't believe I'm bribing my Mom cigarettes, but I have no idea where she's heading. She sites down and lights one up, then proceeds to tell Gina and I about the rabbits and armadillo in the neighbors yard that nobody else could see. After another 20 minutes or so, I put Mom to bed and dosed her up with some liquid morphine that was on the schedule.

Afterwards, while taking a breath and catching up from everything going on, Gina told me that when we were heading out of the door with Mom she had asked if we were going to dinner, then Gina reminded her that she had already eaten a potato for dinner. It took a couple of days, but I thought about that and Mom's craziness suddenly started to make sense. When I asked Mom if she wanted a cigarette, she was thinking we were going out. She was paranoid about crowd and germs, and as such would often wear a little paper mask when she went out in public (which she thought was under the sink!). While sitting outside, I looked and the shadows of various plants and general crap around the RV did kind of look like animals - a rabbit I could maybe see, so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt on the armadillo.

The next week Hospice got an update on how Mom was doing and along the way her anxiety meds went from a regular schedule to as needed. Her morphine got dropped back too. Looking back, it seems that's the combo for short term memory loss and seeing imaginary animals.

But I'll never forget "Want a cigarette" followed by a mad dash underneath the kitchen sink.

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