The days are long, but the years are short.

It's Mothers' Day.  Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how fast it all happens.  My kids are so big now.  This picture was taken almost seven years ago, and it feels like about five minutes instead.  There's a quote that absolutely nails it:  "The days are long, but the years are short."

I remember the day in the picture.  We were at a park.  It was a new-to-them-park that we visited with my cousin Nicky and her son Wyatt.  The kids loved all the climbing and sliding and swinging stuff that they'd never been on before.  They were very busy with all the fun, and I did a lot of swing pushing and standing below with my arms up to catch anyone who was about to fall from the climbing stuff.  (No one fell.)  The popsicles melted immediately.  The kids were so messy, and they loved how messy they were.  Nicky and I got to talk while the other three ran around.  They were filthy with good dirt and tired on the ride home.  I remember it as a really good day.

Now, they are big.  Delaney is just beginning to babysit other people's little kids.  She keeps talking about high school being less than two years away for her.  Aidan is a big kid.  He doesn't sit outside the bathroom door anymore with his hand beneath it, fingers patiently tapping, waiting for me to come back out to read to him or to play or to make lunch.  (I so wish I'd taken a picture of that suntanned little boy hand with pudgy fingers peeping out from under the bathroom door.)

I wonder how my mom felt as my sister and I slowly/super fast grew up.  Did she watch herself get older?  Did she have tinge of freedom that comes with having kids who can do for themselves (complemented by the tinge of regret that hits me right after)?  That push and pull of motherhood is constant.  Sometimes it's quiet, but it's always there.  It's a day to remember and to feel gratitude.  It's a different Mothers' Day this year, one without my mom here on earth.  I will remember all the good things I learned from her about how to be a mom and how to enjoy the people we love.  Mothers' Day is bittersweet.  It helps us celebrate, but it is punctuated with loss too.

Toward the end of the long path

My mom's battle with dementia is almost over.  January 1 began with a trip to the ER and has sifted down to waiting for my mother to float away.  I feel relief, sadness, exhaustion, and feelings of being completely overwhelmed.

Here's what I do not feel:  regret.  For that, I am grateful.

Watching the dementia take hold of her all those years ago and having to force her to face it for the sake of her safety and others was hard.  In fact, the battles with her and some family members changed me forever.  My children's entire lives have been dotted with things I wish they hadn't had to experience as I brought them with me to check in and to rescue with stealth.  I'm no freaky hero, and I've made many mistakes along the way, but I can honestly say that I did everything I could do as I was living through the last eleven years to help my mother to be safe, to feel loved, to not be left behind.  That while raising with my husband two empathetic, intelligent, soulful children.

That is why there's no regret.  My heart is ready to let her go on to the next phase of her being, to leave behind the body and mind that must have so frustrated her.  Now though, her room is filled with peace that is so tangible that I know she's not alone.  I believe that someone is waiting for her just beyond a filmy curtain and that she will be ok.  Finally.

We will never be the same.  That is a fact.  I must believe that, while I cannot think of an ounce of good this disease did for my mother, it maybe gave my children and my husband and I a little more faith in the higher power, more patience, a greater sense of taking care of family, and the knowledge that being sad together is better than being happy alone.