LIVE WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE

Life is a merry-go-round of adventure. Eh, but what kind of adventure? When I was 10-11 years old and present at my parent’s rare parties, I intuitively learned something so significant that it became a blueprint for my life: I heard the grown-ups say things like, 'When Jim graduates from college Max and I are going to live our dream and buy a farmhouse in the country', or 'When Sam retires we're going to move to Mexico,' or 'When our children move out of the house Dan and I will travel around America in our trailer and visit friends and museums.’ You get the idea. What often happened was that these healthy, vibrant people either become too ill, too old, died, or were broke.

Add to this one more scenario that cemented that blueprint: My dad had been sick for most of my life and I saw the joyless limitations and jagged reality of it. I saw how it affected our family. The outcome of my mother’s and the other ‘grown-ups’ dreams hung in bags of sadness and regret. Why? The time was never right!

I absorbed those words as if they were handed down on a silver platter. A karmic design fashioned to map out my future existence, whispered loudly in my ear: Live While You Are Alive. I listened well. I don't wait for the 'right time' to magically appear. I create the right time; pack a suitcase, and go.

Though it might not seem so at the moment, there is a definite connection here. I'm not a reader and those early messages are partially responsible. I made a decision then that I would live life my way and not through the words of some writer telling me how great this or that is. I was interested in creating my own adventure and not being a page-turner holed up in my bedroom living vicariously through someone else's words. To me reading is a boring affair. I want to experience my thrills, not read about someone else’s.

Riding up to the present moment, I now live in a small California town and have brought my 90 something mom up here so that I can monitor her Alzheimer care. She is in the process of dying and today she was put in Hospice care. Her prognosis is terminal cancer. It's a bit surreal to recognize that this is it; there is no time clock to turn back to relive what could have been or should have been. There is no time clock to turn back to relive our relationship. There is no time clock to turn back to tell my mom how much I love her. There is no time clock to turn back to relive the trips that were never taken.

When I walked into her room and saw this frail woman curled up in a fetal position laying on a hospice approved hospital bed, my heart crawled with sadness. Here was my mother, her thin-skinned bony fingers peeking out of the covers, reminded me of the glory days when she kneaded dough for pie crusts and cut rock hard candy and slide it into homemade brownies. Rachael, her birth name, is no longer the mother I knew; one with a dancing face and lively spirit. She is now moving into the beginning of her new journey. Life has a way of doing that.

Though Rachael was not a queen of parenting, she lived a lifetime of regrets that boiled over into yells of explosive rage. In her generation mom never knew she had a choice over her life. She placed her rage of unhappiness on my head and I carried her mantel with graceful perfection. The only way I could peacefully survive was to go into an unhappy silence. I did this for many years. Interestingly, I wasn’t able to stand up to mom because there was some unspoken something that pulled in the reins. Somewhere, somehow, I had an unspoken respect for her; after all she birthed me. She gave me life - the most precious gift there is.


EMPATHY - THE MISTRESS OF FORGIVENESS

My mother is dying, her memory torn away
During these privileged days I see . . .

She was unfulfilled - yet had no time to grow into her own uniqueness
She felt trapped in a life she was not ready for and didn't want
I felt rejected – unloved

Mom's heart was shutdown long before marriage -
when she herself was a sweet, little girl
She didn’t get her needs met, or even know what they were


She didn’t know what love tasted like.
She wasn't hugged – or made a fuss over

Mom was neglected in preference to her beautiful, talented sister
and was grateful someone wanted to marry her

saving her from the disgrace of being an "old maid"
Still, mom wasn't ready for marriage

Love? What's that? What else could she do?
She had no dreams to climb for

After marriage, children were expected
She followed through obediently,

unknowingly putting herself in a position she detested
Cooking, cleaning, ironing, sewing, screaming kids, became her lot in life

She hated her existence but didn't know how to change it
Physical comforts did not touch her loneliness and fear
She didn't know choice existed

"I love you, mom, and I forgive you"
She heard me her way and smiled



Oceana Taicher
www.positivethoughts.info