Tomorrow is my Mother's birthday.

Tomorrow is my Mother’s birthday. That seems like a simple enough statement to make, followed by some kind of birthday presentation… cake, presents, cards, etc. That isn’t as easy for her/me as one might think. My Mother has Alzheimer’s and she lives in a facility.

My Mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s years ago. She was a brilliant woman who had been challenged in her lifetime by alcohol, the death of a husband, getting a University degree at a time when women did not go to University for much more than a teaching certificate, working for civil rights when it was not a safe thing to do, and other things.

My Mom sang for over a decade with the Cincinnati May Festival. She was politically active, she was a person who believed in equal rights for everyone, no matter what your religion, gender, sexual preference, race, or education level was. She had a warped sense of humor and a big laugh; she would dance and/or sing anywhere and at any time.

My mother and I did not get along for the first 30 years. After she divorced my step-father and quit drinking, we became best of friends. Mom is now about 3 years old, she wears a diaper, she is strapped into a wheel chair, she doesn’t walk, she hardly opens her eyes, she can’t read (English or Music) anymore, and she barely feeds herself.

I miss my mother. Recently I drove down to Georgia, and upon getting into the mountains I had one of those epiphanies that people sometimes speak of. Mom spent her childhood in Idaho, that’s also where I was born, and to her it is home. Years ago, shortly after her diagnosis, she asked me to take her to Idaho. I joked with her about it, partly because she’d never been a person who asked anyone to take her anywhere, she’s been around the world under her own power. I assumed that she meant to drop her off. Then I saw the mountains in Georgia. The power of those mountains, the beauty in everything from the trees to the waterfalls to the rock, the overwhelming feeling of home grabbed a hold of my mind and my heart and ripped them from me.

I suddenly understood what Mom had asked. She didn’t want me to drop her off in the Teton’s and let the bears take care of her; she simply wanted to go home.

Sorry Mom.