Complex times

Yes, it's another of my seemingly endless stream of "where have I been lately?" posts. I haven't written a post for a while. Nor have I been checking anyone else's. It's not that I don't think about you or don't care about you. But ... my own life is complex, and I've had some long and difficult weeks lately.

I can get wordy, but I can break down the main news in a few simple sentences:

My mom's house has finally been sold.

My mom seems to be slipping away.

I have been mainly healthy but feel harassed by various duties and responsibilities, and it's getting me down.

Now, a closer focus.

Yes, the house was sold. The closing took place last Friday. But it didn't happen without excitement and nervous times.

The last time I wrote, I said that the closing was two days away, and since the train hadn't gone off the tracks yet, it probably wouldn't. The next day, it went off the tracks.

The title company discovered that part of what we thought was our land (slightly over 2 acres) had been deeded over to someone else in a land exchange. That led to the discovery that the someone else has his house/trailer on our land.

It's a mess, but I shouldn't have been surprised. When this county was originally surveyed, it must have been very ineptly done. If you have ever looked at a plat book, you have seen the townships and ranges in very neat and orderly squares, all lines parallel with each other, both vertically and horizontally, with all 90-degree angles. Well, that sure isn't the case in this county. I am sure the goofy dimensions have made title companies a lot of money over the years.

It postponed the planned closing for one week. To cut to the chase: We sold the buyer one acre of land (getting less money for the sale) and will deal with the occupants of that trailer separately--probably by selling the land to them after we agree upon a price. Meanwhile, the sale of the house, garage, etc., was officially closed last Friday. We got a check that was noticeably smaller than we had hoped.

A couple with three kids (three boys, 6, 7 and 8 years old) bought the house and are busily making repairs and painting and stuff. After four years of being empty, the house will be a busy, happy place again.

It had been empty since a bad fall four years ago put my mom in the hospital and then the nursing home. In September, she had another bad fall and broke her elbow. She was in the hospital for a week, but the experience seems to have taken a lot of the life out of her. Granted, she is 87, but she has changed a lot since before the fall. She sleeps an awful lot now and is getting harder and harder to understand.

All this time, she has been thinking clearly, but when we visited her last week, she made a motion to her head with her good hand and said something to the effect that her mind isn't working so well anymore. Today, we went down there to ride with her to a doctor's appointment (the nursing home van was taking her in her wheelchair). We got there about noon, and I went down to her room to get her and her wheelchair. I said hi to her, and she looked at me with a confused look. She said something that sounded a lot like "Who are you?" That's the first time that has ever happened, and it caught me by surprise.

Later on, though, as we sat in the waiting room at the doctor's office and I was holding her hand, she was holding my hand, too. The doctor unwrapped her arm, felt the arm, wrapped her up again, and we called the van to take us back. But she was getting very sleepy again. Once we got to the nursing home, I called for a nurse to help put her back in bed. She was asleep within minutes.

It's like ... like a science fiction movie, where someone is partially in this dimension and partly in another, and they look semi-transparent. That is my mom. She is here, and yet she isn't. And she doesn't want to be here any longer. Let's be honest about it. She wants to be with her parents and her husband and my brother and her older brother. The doctors told me she is hardly eating at all any more, and she lost six pounds in a recent week. I think you can tell what I am expecting to happen before too many more weeks pass. The arrangements have already been made.

What with the drama about the sale of the house, my mom's health and ongoing busy weeks at work, I am doing well just to maintain an even keel emotionally. I had planned to visit N this week, but I had to postpone it--too much stress. The doctor's appointment with my mom was today. Thursday, I have an all-day meeting two hours away. My weekend will be very busy--football playoff games Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

I am trying to stay healthy. What I need to do is get more sleep and watch how much I eat--I tend to eat more when I'm feeling tense or depressed. So far so good. Since I am aware of it, I think I can deal with it OK. Basically, I am a healthy guy. Sturdy. Dependable. Or trying to be.

But the load on my shoulders has been pretty heavy lately. I know that. Under the circumstances, writing blogs and reading blogs has had to be put on the side for now. I hope you understand.