Insomnia and Some Reflections On Mom

Insomnia: just one of several unpleasant symptoms associated with the declining levels of a specific hormone in men of a certain age. Yeah, that hormone.

Being able to sleep in on the weekends is one of the things I miss most about not being 25 (or 35, for that matter) any more. These days I'm lucky if I can pull off anything over 8 hours on a good night.

And those times when insomnia strikes at 3:30 or 4 am, I often find my thoughts drifting back to the last few weeks of my mom's life. Prior to the fall that led to her eventual passing, she had told me on several occasions she had been ready to go.  She wasn't happy.  She had always been a very independent, active, self-sufficient woman, and the fact that Alzheimer's had robbed her of all that and forced her into assisted living with a set routine had no doubt made life unbearable.

Mom adored Dennis, my first partner. She was heartbroken when we split up, and after he passed from AIDS in the early 90s, she refused to remove his photo from her nightstand, always referring to him as her second son.

The same could not be said of my second partner, Bernie. They were at odds almost from the moment they met. I think that was because Bernie was as independent as she was, and  she knew our relationship would end in heartbreak. She didn't hate him, but she also didn't shed a tear when we eventually went our separate ways.

On the other hand, although she was outwardly pleasant toward him on her visits to San Francisco, Mom loathed Rory. Moms know; that's all I have to say regarding number three.

But with Ben it was different.  She loved him from the moment they met and I think that despite her diminished mental acuity at the time, she sensed that he was the man in whom she could finally entrust her son to happily live out his life.

And that is why I still find the timing of her fall—for lack of a better word—suspicious. It happened very shortly she and Ben met, and at the risk of making this all about me, I now believe that since she felt I was safe and she was ready to go, she set the wheels of her departure in motion—if perhaps only unconsciously.

The fall in assisted living (which led to an initially undiscovered fracture in one of the vertebrae in her spine—thank you very much Abrazo Fucking Healthcare—and forced her into a nursing home and a wheelchair) was only the first. I mean, how many times can you "accidentally" fall out of bed or from a parked wheelchair?

(My brother-in-law immediately suspected negligence on the part of the nursing home which may in fact have a ring of truth to it, but I think the repeated falls were far more likely her desperate attempt to get the hell out of this life.)

I feel no guilt about any of  the decisions my sister and I made during her final weeks on this earth, but I regret that she went through so much suffering—both physical and emotional—during that time. I also regret that I didn't spend more time with her during her final weeks—even if, for all intents after the final fall she wasn't really here any more.

And perhaps selfishly, I find myself missing her even more these days, not being able to pass on all my adventures and tribulations in Denver…