ABANDONMENT

We really do revert to being just like infants when we age, don't we? The thing that scared me most when my children were small, was knowing that if something happened to me, they were just too young to understand absence or death. No matter how much explaining everyone did, it would never sink in, and they would always feel like I had just abandoned them. It broke my heart to even think about it. From the sound of this note from my sister, Mom has reverted back to that stage, and did not handle her three-day absence at all well (even though she had arranged for others to drop in on Mom each day):

"When I got there last night the diabetes nurse was sitting on the sofa with her arm around Mom, and Mom was just boo-hooing. Even though she knew where we were, she let herself get all in a bundle about being alone. They said she hadn't been eating, and even though she wasn't sick, they brought food to her. I tried to reason with her and assure her, but told her that starting next week I planned on not coming over on Tues & Thurs evenings so that I could get some stuff done. She cried nearly the whole time I was there, but finally I think I got thru to her that I wasn't leaving her and would always return. She did try and get me to take her home with me. She said she would sleep on the sofa. I told her that we couldn't do that since her shots and meds were at FCA. I told her we could plan ahead for special occasions and holidays and let her stay over, but that didn't seem to help much. She was ready to go right then. This is
what I expected at the beginning, not 3 or 4 weeks down the road. I guess the bloom is off the rose."