March Blues

Every March like clock work, I feel pretty blue... oddly sometimes I don't even realize why at first. I just start to feel kinda somber, then a few days in it will hit me... MARCH. March is a horrible month for me. It's the month my mom died. Though it has been 18 years, I still get really sad. As I get older and time goes on, I think I get more sad because I was 12 when she died, she has been gone 18 years now. I have lived more of my life without her than I did with her. Also I can't see her clearly in my mind anymore, she has been blurry for years. Though once in a great while I can hear a song that takes me back to my life with her and for a fleeting moment and can see her clearly even smell her, then it's gone.

I start to wonder what she would look like now, what she would be doing... so many what if's. The what if's tend to haunt me. I miss her. I have however been able to put to rest some issues with my mom in therepy this last year. I have since the day she died always thought it was my fault and that I killed her. I already thought this and the fact that my grandmother held me down on her stairs the day I learned my mom was brain dead and slapped my face and told me I killed her only confirmed the guilt I felt. I never really spoke of the guilt I felt to anyone because I felt like they would validate it and I already had a hard time living with how I felt. Only recently I learned this could not have been my fault and was able to let go of a lifetime of guilt and anguish. My mother had an aneurysm, and she was only 32 years old. She had high blood pressure, and could not take her blood pressure medication and drink. So she chose to drink instead. Well needless to say she always had a headache because of her choice. So when she came home that day, 18 years ago today to be exact, she said it was the worst headache she'd had. She asked if I thought she should go to the doctor. What I said has always haunted me. I said no. She always had a headache. For years I kept wishing I could go back and say yes. But was 12, that is a lot of responsibility to put on a 12 year old.

She had come home early from work and taken some benedryl meds that usually helped with her sinus' and headaches. We talked briefly and she went to sleep. I was on Spring break and was dong laundry and what not, and a few hours later, she got up again and took some more meds, she was kinda cranky so I didn't talk to her much. A while after that I remember I was putting laundry away in my room, and kept hearing the strangest noises. My mom was a HEAVY sleeper. I mean she could sleep through a hurricane. Sometimes she talked in her sleep so at this point I wasn't really worried. I went in to her room and she was making funny noises like she was driving in NASCAR or something. She was clutching her sweatshirt while making the noises. At this age I really had no idea that she was having a seizure. I just thought she was having a strange dream. I tried to wake her up, of course she didn't wake. Being a heavy sleeper, I didn't want to over react. She had a short temper, and I was afraid if I called 911 or something she would wake up and beat my ass.

I called our neighbor Michelle to come over to see if she could wake her. She wasn't home, so I called my grandma's house. My aunt Margie was there, and said she would come right over. She got there almost immediatly, she went in and tried to wake her as well. She splashed water on her and kinda slapped her cheeks a little wtih no response... She told me to call 911. while waiting for the abulance she woke up. I walked in the room and she was sitting up looking at Margie, and she said" Bet, I just called an ambulance, are you okay?" I remember her just looking at Margie, so I said "mom?" and she turned and looked at me, and I just knew... she had no idea who I was. She just kept blankly staring as if she wasn't seeing anything, then she laid back down and went to sleep. That was the last time she woke up. Those two moments have always haunted me. First me telling her no don't go, then her looking at her own daughter and having no idea who I was, or probably even who she was was.

At the Emergency room they were trying to determine what was wrong. In the small town of Burley, medical care is not major, they sent big things to places like Salt Lake City, Utah or Boise, Idaho. They thought at first she may have overdosed cause I mentioned she had taken pills twice. They finally took her back to her own room, and we had spoken to a neurologist. They were going to life light her to SLC. They said she had, had an aneurysm and there wasn't much they could do at thier facilities in Burley. At this point they didn't know the extent. They thought maybe she could pull through, but would have to learn things like speaking and walking all over again. By the next morning they had determined she was brain dead, and all the hopes of her recovering were crushed. I remember thinking, where am I going to live? Not a thought you want to have at 12 years old. My father was not in the picture and my mom was all I had.

Luckily for me my mom's sister Margie, said she would adopt me if I wanted to live with her. And I did. She adopted me after a couple years of custody battles, restraining orders and court appointed couselors, to determine if my father should get custody. Luckily he was not fit, still isn't. 18 years later I can still remember those couple days like they were yesterday, yet I can't see her face clearly anymore on the good memories.

A few years ago, a lady that some of my coworkers worked with previously had an aneurysm. like my moms it had ruptured, but the technology they have now days is amazing. They were able to put this rod or spring type thing in to close the vien, and she had to relearn everything, talking, walking simple things, but a few years later is fine. I feel kinda bitter that this couldn't have happened with my mom. A ruptured aneurysm was a death sentence then, but not anymore. I am glad someone else won't have to experience what I did. But I just wish she had been so lucky too. Well that was a depressing blog, but I feel a little better venting.