Shari Johnson, Publisher/cook/caretaker/
It’s 3:09 a.m. and rather than share my political frustrations that nobody likes to hear anyway (including me) I decided I’d share some recent Chronicles of caring for Violet. The thing that stinks about caring for an aging parent is that I’m aging too! And while my mind feels young my body is clearly 64 and somedays it’s years far exceed the recommended daily allowance of stupidity.
Last week was one of those days. All seven of them. Mother sleeps great most every night. But one night she did not and was up at 5:30 a.m. which made for a long day. My day starts between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m. every day so that I can get some quiet time with the Lord before the country music and daily dose of 14 hours of the CMT Station roars through my brain. I fully believe that this is the judgement of God because as a child I used to lie to my parents and tell them that country music made me car sick so they wouldn’t listen to it on the radio in the car. And being the good parents that they were, they’d turn it off. So now, we begin our day with the latest country music on Country Music Television. The end result is me being somewhat of a country music fan.
But that’s not the entire point of this story. After Mother’s very long, no good day, she slept like a baby the next night. When I got up around 5 a.m. I didn’t want to wake her so I groped through the darkness of the living room to find my shoes that I had parked beside my chair the night before (knowing that we were never allowed to leave them in the living room as children) but in the darkness I knew just where I’d left them. I did not however remember a cord that goes to the recliner. I don’t even know the reason the recliner has a cord, but that morning it was apparently there to bring me face to face with the floor.
My knee hit on the hardwood first with my rib cage catching Mother’s end table that was hand picked by my Dad for its hardwood. Obviously chosen well because I didn’t break it. However my ribs did not fair so well. Although not broken they are definitely bent and the reason I am awake today at 3 a.m., seven days later feeling very much 64. My knee is a beautiful deep purple and crimson and aches like the dickens but is not nearly as loud as my deep purple and crimson rib cage area.
So I guess this is more the Chronicles of Shari attempting to care for Violet in a cranky state. I’ve somehow managed to return the favor of spoiling Mother as she spoiled us. Although the conversations are no longer in depth and often unverified reels rolling in her mind that make no sense at all to me, I go along with them pretending I understand everything she says. And she is still most always pleasant, but sometimes not. If I’m in another room for too long she’s upset and tells me that she’d “Never have moved here if she knew I was going to be so mean to her.” So then not only does my knee and rib hurt, so does my heart. And then I have need to be cranky and nobody to be cranky with but myself, because I know that Mother is not responsible for her unkind words. The struggle is real.
God’s sense of humor… I do get my Saturday and Sunday night reprieve on the RFD channel with my new favorite singers and musicians the Malpass Brothers. Chris and Taylor, who have hair like Conway Twitty and sing like Randy Travis and are seriously the two most adorable guys on television right now in my world. Their high hair, Porter Wagoner suits and comic wit is just the antidote of a good time that get’s me through another week. Followed of course by my all time fave The Daily and Vincent Show.
So as for the Chronicles of Mother, her mind continues to decline into a state of previous decades, while I’m just trying to stay upright. God bless ya!
