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Love is Love No Matter It’s Imperfections

Today, December 19, 2015, is the four-year anniversary of my grandmother’s (Maria Luisa Recio Cadena) death.  Grandma Mary was 92 years old when she departed this life.  She suffered from dementia in the last few year’s of her life.  My mother was her primary caregiver until her own bout with Alzheimer’s became more prevalent and my sister, Gigi, then took care of most of grandma’s needs.

The first memories I have of my mom exhibiting signs of the dreaded disease Alzheimer’s was around 2009, if not somewhat earlier.  We didn’t really see it for what it was at that time.  She had a lot on her plate in those years looking after her mother,  her own health, and my dad’s.  My siblings and I believed the lapses in her memory were mostly attributed to the anxiety and stress she had in her life rather than the early onset of dementia, we were wrong.  She was in her late 60s at that time and other than her daily battle with diabetes she still was in otherwise good health.  We know now that people with Diabetes are at higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s

Mom and her mother’s relationship over the years, for the most part, was typical of mother and daughter and there is no questioning the love they shared for one another.  However, I felt that there was an underlying desire from both of them that they would have liked to resolve prior year’s issues back then, rather to have carried them with each other for many years.

I know mom harbored some justified resent towards her mother and I witnessed in later years some heated discussions at times.  I didn’t like to witness the discord and would often tell mom that she waited too long to get answers for things that happened decades years ago.  I’d tell her that grandma was not capable at her frail age to have those kinds of discussions, but mom was adamant that grandma understood.  Times were different back then and families didn’t have all the recourses available today for counseling and such.

My mother’s family experienced a tragedy back in the 60s that always leaves the survivors with so many unanswered questions.  Her father committed suicide and after this traumatic experience those that survived him never spoke or talked about it for many many years.  Each of them handled their own personal grief in their own way.  That included my grandma who never ever shared any details about this tragedy.  My mother, over the years, did share some particulars as best as she could remember, but it was evident she never found  any resolution……..do you ever?

The fact that my mother was raised with her grandparents was a large part of the resent she at times felt towards her mom.  Her brothers were living in Corpus Christi with her mom and dad, while she lived miles away in Premont.  She attributes a lot of who she is to her abuelita and her aunts who cared for her.  I can also add that this experience was a large part of why she was the type of mother she was to us and why our family is as close as we are.  I remember her telling me not too long ago that because of that she made it her life’s goal to keep her family together always.

The post I wrote before this one was entitled “Like mother, Like daughter, Copy and Paste” which was about my mother and my sister.  A bond between a mother and daughter is a unique bond and although my mother and her mom shared many qualities they also lived very different lives.  The copy and paste buttons wouldn’t readily apply to their relationship.  Grandma was a woman with a career,  mom was a career mother.  Grandma was highly sociable, mom loved the solace of home.  Grandma was exceptionally fashionable, mom was busy being a mom, fashion took a back seat to her kids.  Grandma was Cinderella at the ball, mom was comfortable being Cinderella at home.  Grandma was catered to by her husband, mom catered to hers, most of the time, haha.

No two mom and daughter relationships are alike and I think mom purposely set out to have her kids experience things differently than what she experienced growing up.  Her kids were nobody else’s responsibility but hers and she made sure we’d never question the love she had for us.  Never.

Just like her kid’s responsibility was nobody else’s, neither was the care of her mother as she began to struggle graciously growing old.  Although there may have been challenges in their relationship over the years the loving bond was undeniable.  Grandma counted on mom and mom did not ever waiver from what she felt she was compelled to do by the love she had for her mother.  This did not come without a toll though and my mother’s health and mind began to slowly decline.  There were many mornings when my mom lacked the strength to get up or her neuropathy kept her in bed.  This caused her extreme anxiety because she needed to tend to her mom who was usually up early and already calling and leaving many messages on the answering machine.  My mother married a good man, fortunately for grandma, because my dad was the taxi and taco delivery guy when my mother wasn’t feeling good.

Grandma’s health and mind continued declining and at the same time my mother was struggling with hers.  It was becoming apparent that she couldn’t handle being her primary caregiver any longer.  She struggled and agonized for months knowing that she’d have to relinquish the responsibility of her mom’s care to someone else.  There is a guilt that one feels in a time like this, trust me I know.  In my mom’s case she didn’t have 5 siblings that she could share the weight of that decision with, so the agony was mostly hers.

I believe not too long after admitting grandma to the nursing home in Alice that my mom’s illness became much more evident to all us.  The agonizing over that decision I’m sure contributed to her mind’s decline.

My mom has no memory of this day four years ago.  We have purposely stayed clear of the subject of her mom’s death particularly because she believes she is still alive.  I remember months after grandma’s passing a former classmate of mine called me, she oversees the apartment homes my grandma lived at prior to moving to the nursing home.  Apparently mom and dad were there demanding to see grandma.  I had to call my aunt to go over there and calm my mom.  My aunt also had to explain to her that her mother had died recently.  My mother had no memory of a funeral at all and demanded to know why nobody informed her.  My aunt told me she cried like it was the first time hearing of her mom’s death.  This was when I realized how much of a grip Alzheimer’s had on her mind, so much so that she couldn’t remember an event of this nature that had just taken place.

Since the years after grandma’s death she continues to reminisce on her mom and dad’s lives. Her memories and thoughts of them are laced in the wonderful love she felt for both of them.
Although mom shared two homes growing up, one with her grandparents, and the other with her parents, she is always wanting to go home to her mom.  The image in my mind is one of a memory that she shared with me many times and that is of a young girl peering down the road watching as her parents drove off leaving her behind.  A memory none of us care to have.

 In our journey through life will realize many things and with each passing year we grow the wiser about life and about the people in our lives.  We take the good and the bad, we play the hand we are dealt, we dream big when we are young and we take less for grant when we grow older.

Life comes full circle for most of us and we learn that there isn’t a perfect love, there is just love!  We are fortunate for the love you shared with us Grandma Mary and for the memories etched in our hearts that we will carry just like mom, for a lifetime.