It's the little things

Here's another view of my garden -and taken yesterday . There are little red wild strawberries all over the place. They look really big next to the 2 inch gnomes.

The strawberries are ripe, my college girl is home for the summer, my mom is back at her house with the college girl, exams are graded, and a new class started...

And just about anything wil make me cry in between the moments when I feel life is overwhelmingly sweet and good because it is all so sad and difficult. That pretty much sums it up.
Oh, and the nice trauma surgeon says at the end of the summer my mom could have the colostomy reversed. Let me just pencil that in.

Mother's Day

It started with the 6 year old's awakening shout of, "Happy Mother's Day" followed by his giving me a small stuffed fox and then deciding, no, he wanted it and crying when I wouldn't trade for the killer whale he had. It ended with me cleaning up my mom because things are still... well awkward. She keeps telling me I'm wonderful. If I am it's not at all by choice.
Really I remind myself that if I keep in mind where we were a week ago, and the week before that we are doing better and better. But then I think about a week before that and -no, really this is not an improvement.
That many weeks ago I knew more than I wanted to know on any number of topics but absolutely nothing about stomas. If you don't know what this is be happy. I can only say my mother is tired of the nurses telling her it (hers inparticular) is beautiful. Nurses are funny people...
Meanwhile I have graded the final exam and posted grades and am now waiting to hear from that one student who always wants to know how I came up with their grade (by doing exactly what the syllabus said I'd do...). Truthfully it has been a good bunch this semester and a number are certainly smarter than I am. I only say that to sound humble -who really thinks this at the end of the semester? Mostly I think, how, when I said everything so clearly, could they still seem so confused? Irrationally I write a question to be challenging and then am annoyed with the ones who are too obviously challenged by it. It really hasn't been long enough since I was a student to be changing sides so easily. Still, in us vs. them, it's so comforting to know who us is - in the classroom at least. I've no idea which side I'm on anywhere else.
I think the non-picture taker in the family took this picture today because he knew I needed reminding. I couldn't be a mom without him.

It's just p**p

Well it is. But then again I can't even bring myself to type it out in the title of this entry. It was my mother who raised me thus. We could talk openly about a lot but bathroom humor just wasn't humorous. I didn't get the finger pulling joke was about until I was in my 30s -and I was completely revolted when I learned what it was all about. I was in high school before I knew the "f-word" wasn't the 4 letter word that ended in t. Thus there has been little to laugh about here.
Besides the pain and life-threatening part, my mom is simply repulsed by the reality of the colostomy. I pretend not to be but I am too. She turns away and cries and I try to sound cheerful and nonchalant and then I go and cry -or yell at my husband -or forget what red lights are there for -or have my husband yell back at me because we are both too exhausted and too overwhelmed and ...
When the home-health nurse said we had to take her to the ER Saturday night due to unusually severe pains and swollen ankles, instead of acting like the veterans of such things we are, we acted like the traumatized wrecks that we are (also). If a friend hadn't stopped by and reminded us of basics like shoes and keys we wouldn't have made it there. The surgeon said, "I'll meet you at the ER" which sounds so as if he'll be waiting by the door -at least if you're delusional it does. So eventually when we'd gone through triage and we'd recounted everything to everyone the surgeon came and said (again I quote), "you just had a big p**py." We stopped at Burger King for fries on the way home and deliriously -even my mom, repeated his words over and over again.
...because while it is true my mom has never appreciated bathroom humor - it was her subversive sense of humor that inspired my choice of garden planters.