The Yarn Elephant in the Room...

So, y'all know I crochet, right?  And knit, yeah, I knit, too.  Anyhow, I didn't always crochet.  I didn't learn to crochet until I was pregnant with the Impertinent Daughter, despite my mom's best efforts to teach me when I was a kid.  She just couldn't understand why I wouldn't do it, especially since I would see a pattern for something, like a bag, or an afghan, or a poncho, and I would beg her to make it for me.  "Why don't I teach you to crochet and you can make it yourself," she said to entice me into learning.  

But I refused.  I just wasn't interested.  I never got beyond learning to make a double chain cord, and even that was under protest.  

Why?  Well, aside from some of the cool things Mom made, like the blankets, or the super cool poncho she made for me in fifth grade that was SO WARM, and the awesome potholders that really protected your hands from the heat, Mom also made a lot of the kind of stuff that would have me looking at it and going, "Why?  Why would someone make this??? WHY???"

WHY WOULD SOMEONE CROCHET A COVER FOR A SINGLE TOILET PAPER ROLL????  And try to make it look like a.... FAT CANDLE??

There was a lot of stuff like that, and Mom would get all excited, "Oh, this will be so decorative, so cute, I can put this on the buffet/table/tv cabinet/piano, it'll look just like decorative candles/boxes/vases/flowers/whatever."  She was seriously delighted by those things, and she would crochet them and be so happy about them.  And I would do the typical pre-teen thing and roll my eyes and sigh dramatically, so put upon by my mother's horrible lack of taste (in my advanced eleven-year-old opinion, that is).

I would look at her crochet magazines and books and think, "Why would anyone think Hey, those talcum powder  containers look naked.  I must dress them up with CROCHET, and I will make them into... TALL POODLES.  Because, yeah, that's what I think of every time I see talcum powder containers.  TALL POODLES."  

Then I would think that I should probably hide that particular magazine before Mom found it and decided our bathroom couldn't be without tall talcum powder container hiding poodles.

You have to realize, it was the seventies.  Talcum powder for grownups was perfumed and came in these tall skinny cardboard round containers.  Think Pringles can, but smaller.  Now, in our house, those cans stayed in the cabinets, because we just didn't have a lot of surfaces for them to sit on in the bathroom.  But my mom decided they had to be candles.  Or something.

Anyhow, I had no interest in learning to crochet just to do something like that.  Or to create big fluffy skirts for dolls to hide paper towel rolls.  I preferred to reap the benefits of the warm and beautiful  afghans she created over the years, or the hats she made for me.  

I was 32 and heavily pregnant with my first child when I finally decided I wanted to learn how to crochet.  I was having Braxton-Hicks contractions, and my ob-gyn gave me strict orders to get off my feet, drink plenty of water, and do nothing.

I don't "do nothing" very well.   If you want me to sit down and rest, you better give me something to do with my hands or to keep my brain busy.  A book only works if I'm not required to be social or pay attention to something.  My mom, wisely remembering  that sitting down with me for the initial lessons hadn't worked, gave me some yarn, a couple of hooks, and a book with basic instructions, along with a small booklet with simple patterns in it.  I decided to make a baby blanket, and after a while, I would call her and ask for help.  Or I would bring my project along when I went to wash clothes at her house, and sit down to ask questions, watching her hands move through the stitches and then try to emulate her movements.  

I finished that blanket shortly before my daughter was born, and it is the most crooked, wonkiest, saddest excuse of a baby blanket, but both of my kids love it and have rescued it every time I try to make it disappear.  

One blanket became two, then three, then I made a vest for my daughter, then a poncho, and the next thing I knew, I was crocheting.  And I was finding some pretty cool patterns.  And it was a great way to connect with my mom, as we commiserated over the occasional pattern that suffered from badly written instructions and required a lot of studying the pattern photos with a magnifying glass counting stitches.

She cheated and had my dad do it.  When I asked him about it, he snorted and said, "It's an interesting challenge."

I discovered something, though, as I worked through learning stitches and how to put things together.

Crocheting calmed me.

Mom used to make all our clothes, so my sisters and I all learned the basics of sewing, many times under protest as well.  I don't know about my sisters, but while Mom taught me how to embroider, and how to put seams together, and how to pin a pattern together, it was my DAD who taught me how to sew on buttons, and how to hem pants, and how to stay-stitch.  Because he learned how from his grandmother, and from the Marine Corps.

The takeaway from that is... sewing does NOT calm me.  I am really really good at embroidery, but I hate it.  It makes me feel like my nerves are all crawling, like I could fly apart.  It's frustrating and I get very, very snarly while I'm doing it.  The same with machine sewing, sometimes.

But crocheting?  It's so... zen.  It relaxes me and calms me down.  So does knitting.  It's very peaceful and I think it's because it has enough repetitive motion to soothe me while engaging my brain because I have to think ahead about the stitches, but it's no big deal, because I can take my time.  It's almost like meditation, in a way.

Where am I going with this?

Well, like many crafters, I have a Pinterest.  And I pin both crochet patterns and knitting patterns, some that I intend to make, and others that intrigue me and I might try.

And, you know, there are a lot of great patterns out there.  There really are.  They're awesome, and you should check them out.

But in the last couple of years, it seems those... really awful patterns that I thought had died an undignified death in the seventies, buried under the weight of National Geographic magazines and Reader's Digest novels in the attics of elderly women... have been making a reappearance in online journals and sites.  I'm ... kinda horrified.  I actually came across a blog where virtues of the horrible fake candle talcum can cover were being enthusiastically extolled.  I just... WHY???

There is a reason I tell younger friends, "You know how you like to call the seventies retro?  I like to call it thank God I don't live there anymore."  

Because, trust me, no one needs to crochet individual covers for each roll of toilet paper in their house.  For reals.

Almost, But Not Quite...

The day is coming, probably sooner than I would like, when my mother won’t know who I am.  

I’m braced for it.  I have promised myself that I won’t fall apart... at least, not in front of her.  I’ll wait until I’m out in the parking lot, and then I’ll probably cry until I’m calm again.

We stopped by the nursing home she’s in this evening on our way home to Central Texas, and when I greeted her, she sat up with a smile, happy to have visitors.  Even though at first, she had no idea who we were, just that we were family.

We all said hello, and I sat down next to her and took her hand after helping her get her glasses on, and I could see her staring at my face, trying to get some sense of recognition.  So I said, “Do you know who I am?”

She smiled and said, “Yes, I do.  You’re Carol... no, wait... you’re Jo.”

A lot of people who haven’t see us for a few years usually mistake me for my middle sister.  A few might mistake me for my oldest sister.  Carol and I share a lot of personality traits, and facial expressions, but she’s fair, blonde, and green-eyed, and I’m olive, auburn, and brown-eyed.  So it’s not that far out of the way that Mom would guess I’m Carol first.

Except she’s my mom, and in her normal state of mind, she’d never make that sort of mistake.

In her normal state of mind.

I hugged her and said, “Yes, I’m Jo!” and proceeded to chat with her, and have the kids sit with her and visit, but I could see that she had no real idea who I was.  Just... that I was family.  That I was one of her daughters.  But... she didn’t know me.

It wasn’t until we were leaving, and I had hugged her and said, “I love you, Mom.”

She said, “I love you, too.”  Then something seemed to spark in her mind and she stared at me intently.  “I love you,” she said as I stepped back to the curtain divider.  “I love you... like... a bush.. and ... and a.. pickle.  A peck.”

I felt tears sting my eyes, and I sang, “A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.”

She joined in.  “A hug around the neck, and a barrel in the heap.  A barrel in the heap and I’m talking in my sleep about you, about you...”

“Jo,” she said with a huge smile and recognition in her eyes.  “There you are.  There’s my baby.  That’s my girl, my little Jo.  My tomboy.”

I fought back tears and kept singing.  “I love you, a bushel and a peck, you bet your pretty neck I do.  Toodle oodle oodle, toodle oodle oodle, toodle oodle doodley doo!”

I hugged her again, and she whispered, “You’re my baby, and I’ll never forget my baby.”

“I know, Mom,” I whispered back.  “I love you.”

I left, and I had tears running down my face, but I held it together all the way home, until now.  

That day is coming, when even singing what my daughter used to call affectionately “The Grandma Song,” won’t fire off the right neurons in Mom’s mind.  I’m going to hate that day.  But... I think I’ll get through it.

Peeking through...

Every once in a while, little glimpses of the woman my mom used to be comes peeking through...

So, I was talking to her today, and while we were talking, Bets walks in to show her something.  The first I hear of it is Mom saying, "What's that?"

"It's broccoli, Mom," I hear my sister say.

"Huh," says Mom thoughtfully.  "Okay."  Then after a long pause, she says, "Is it supposed to be brown???"

I nearly fell out of my chair, but managed not to laugh out loud, because I was dying to know the answer, you know?

"It's dehydrated," I heard Bets say with exasperation in her voice.

"I see," Mom said politely.  "That's... interesting."

"I'm gonna take it back to the kitchen and put it on a plate so you can eat it after you get off the phone," my sister said.

"Okay," Mom said.  "That's fine."  And then, after a moment, when she was sure Bets was gone, she leaned close to the phone and said, quite emphatically, "I'm not gonna eat that."

Yeah, I completely lost it at that point.  And I don't blame her one bit!!  Brown broccoli??? WTF????? Do I even want to know???

The one about my mom...

You know, there comes a point in your life when you realize your parents are not immortal. Something happens, a heart attack, an accident, something that makes you realize your parents aren't bulletproof and that they are not always going to just be there. That there is going to come a point in your life that one or both of them will be gone and you'll never hear that voice again, or see those eyes watching you with amusement and love...

I faced that moment a long, long time ago.

When my dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer twelve years ago, it was scary, but I somehow knew he would survive it and live past the six month diagnosis he was given. And he did. He lived eight years longer than the doctors expected.

But I also knew when the end was coming, when he was having to go back again and again to have his esophagus dilated so he could swallow. And when they said the cancer was back, I knew he wasn't going to beat it this time.

I accepted it.

Then Hurricane Ike hit Texas and knocked out power to most of Houston, where they lived, and greatly accelerated the process. He was gone by November.

So, my mom, being a survivor, managed another year in the house she and my father had lived in for sixty some odd years, before frailty and fear made it impossible for her to live by herself. My oldest sister bought a house, and now she and Mom live together. And over the last few years, Mom has gotten thinner, has gotten smaller, and has gotten a little more vague.

My mother... is not immortal. She is very human. I accept that. And it seems over the last weeks, I've been getting more and more reminders of that fact.

She has Alzheimer's.

She has mild emphysema.

And this week, she had a mini-stroke.

She's back to her normal self now. Well, as normal as she gets these days, that is. And it's not easy, watching and hearing about it from a distance. I want to be there, but... I need to be here more. I need to be with my kids. They need me to be here with them, because to them, I'm still the Invincible Mom.

Over the last year, I've had this growing sense of Mom drifting farther and farther away from me, like I'm standing on shore, and she's standing on a boat. There will come a point where we won't be able to touch fingertips any more, and I dread that day. I dread the day when my own Invincible Mom drifts beyond my reach, when her stories and family history are gone.

I know it's coming. It may not be soon, but it's coming. I don't have to like it... but I do have to accept it.

And that's the hardest part of all.

That's My Mom!!

My mom is soooo much cooler than your mom. Totally.

Why?

Because this is the photo she's using on her Facebook profile...




Heh... my mom, flashing signs... *dies of the snickers*

Actually, this was part of a larger photo that was taken at my niece Amanda's 22nd birthday party...




That's Mom, Amanda, and my sister, Carol. And the crossed hands with two fingers are for "22." *rolls eyes at how dorky her family is sometimes* My mom, though, is teh awesome.

You have all been informed.