altar

so, i am working on my momma's altar for dia de los muertos down at bare hands. trying to remember all the things i want to put on said altar that is most descriptive of my mom and i am drawing a blank. grief is still fresh and i am dealing with it but it is hard. i have become really forgetful, more so than i ever was which was a lot. i just want to call her and say "hey' and shoot the shit... her white turban that she wore while she was bald lays on the altar, it still smells like her... i will never wash it.

to the bone

my mom has been dead for over three weeks. it is still really odd. i keep feeling as though i forgot something; or that i have misplaced something. that unsettling feeling one gets when they have left home and fear that the coffee pot or iron may still be on. it is that "mmm..something is not quite right" feeling. i am having it all the time. busy, as usual, but different. i am tired to the bone, exhausted beyond belief. i truly could sleep for months. is this how performers feel when they are hospitalized for exhaustion? i wonder. so.....motherless. i ran in the race for the cure on a very dreary, rainy saturday. i had a bone fragment of my mom in my pocket, her name on my back under the statement, "in memory of." last year her name was under the statement, "in celebration of." things can change so drastically in a year. so, i ran, in her honor with so many other runners who ran in honor of those they have loved and lost and those still fighting. downtown was a sea of pink. i thought i would fall apart but i didn't. it was a good day. now i am preparing my altar for my mother for dia de los muertos at bare hands art gallery. i think that that may be a bit more emotional for me. i must honor her in the way that is symbolic to who she was. i miss my mother terribly. i pass her image often when i walk through my house. she is all over the computer. i walk by and say "hi mom."

honoring

i haven't written in several days. this past weekend was the "race for the cure" for breast cancer. it was rainy and completely dreary and i woke up, tired to the bone which has been a constant as of late. grief leeches all energy from a person. by eer determination to run this race in the rain carrying a bone from my mothers body in my running shorts and thinking of her last month and remembering what breast cancer did to her. i arrived at linn park and was so amazed by the turn out even in the horrible weather. last year i ran with the name of my mom on the "in celebration" slip of paper worn on my back, this year, i ran with her name on the "in memory" slip of pink paper. in memory, memory, memorize, memorial, memorable. all of those words are now so personal for me, so real and tangible... i ran in MEMORY of my mother. i ran in memory of her spirit, determination, love , tenacity, will, i ran in memory of her as a young bride, mother, woman i ran in memory of her as a dying wife, mother, sister, aunt, grandmother, cousin and friend, dying in body but not in MEMORY... i will never forget this woman, i will always honor her and i will forever be in awe of who this womon was, what this woman gave to me and where she left a mark on me and those who love her. my mom lives in me.

silence

i cannot tell you how many times over the passed 2 weeks i have said "i need to call my mom". didn't matter what it was about, i just always called her. that statement just slips out. i cannot call her just to talk anymore, i cannot call to ask for a recipe or to get some support and i cannot call her anymore to shoot the shit. i can only wish. i still cannot shake the last 2 days of her life from my psyche. i wish that i had said more. did she know that i was glad she was my mother, did she feel that i was there and that i loved her and was going to do whatever she needed? i cannot believe that my momma is gone. yes, at 45 years of age she is still my momma. i could go home and just lay around and she would feed me, fret over me and drive me crazy. it is is vast, the hole that is left in ones heart, identity, spirit when a parent dies. i just didn't know how deep that hole was going to be. i need some deep, emotional spelunkers to rappel deep into my emotional chasms and come pull me out. i miss my mom and i want her to be here. i haven't cried in two days and here they come the tears that won't stop. where do i go now? who do i call? i am a motherless woman and i am not handling it all to well.

sinking in

it has been 2 weeks since breast cancer took my mom..... still sinking in for me... got her ashes back the saturday after her death. so odd how an entire person can fit in one plastic bag inside a box. my dad has put that box on her side of the bed and sleeps with it there. i find that both heartbreaking, and poignant and telling. she is truly missed. this is the hard part, the "sinking in" part. i feel like my equilibrium is all out of wack and "wonky". my routine is upset and i hate an upset routine. we have all been waiting for her death for months and then when it happens it is so hard to prepare for the emotions. i took my sweet mom's ashes on a camping trip to grayton beach with 17 of the most wonderful folks i have had the honor of knowing and i set her free to the ocean carried by the wind. it was beautiful. there she went, in the sand, in the salty spray, in my hair, everywhere. she loved the beach and when my dad was in viet nam we lived in fort walton and we went to the beach all the time and i have the fondest memories of walking out to the sand bar, holding my mom's hand as a small, blond 5 year old and we would go crabbing and just watch the boats and i would never let go of her hand until will made it back to the shoreline....... i miss my mom very much and don't know how to deal with her passing on most days so i just write, talk, cry and run. he passing has left a huge and deep mark on me. she was the most frustrating, fascinating, caring, eccentric and loving woman and i miss her.

seeping out

well, i went back to work too soon. i am falling apart left and right. lashing out at those who love me because i don't know what else to do. feel remorse for that and sad about it. thank goodness these folks still love me.. thoughts, memories, regrets, questions are all seeping and oozing out of me. i picture this thick, mucousy colored sludge just leaking out of me and affecting everything. how i talk, sleep, eat, move and be. i am so very detached and so very tuned in. how contradictory. no one can tell you how you are gonna deal with the death of a parent. sure, she is out of pain, okay she is no longer suffering, good that i got to be with her. so what!? the only way for her to be out of pain was to have to cease being alive. the only way out of suffering was through death...... there is nothing i could do to prevent her cancer, it just was the way her life panned out. there was nothing i could do to ease her pain and suffering except hold her hand, love her, stroke her, swab her mouth, clean her eyes and tell her i loved her. there was nothing i could do but witness it. now, what do i do? i am a bit of a control freak as far as emotions go and these ones are truly upsetting my emotional apple cart. these emotions are raw, random, angry and completely irrational at times. they are valid and they are needing to be expressed i just need to be a bit more......i don't know, a bit more what?

blur

well yesterday my mom died and today i am motherless. i was motherless yesterday but it didn't sink in so much. today, it is sinking in. it is sinking in in minute increments, tiny little bits. i really feel in a blurry, slurry daze. functioning is not an issue, i can do that with my eyes closed. i have functioned well during some of the most devastating times of my life. this is different, subtle, stealth-like. i go on about my day with ease, working, running, errands, and what-not and then BOOM! out of nowhere i am sobbing and trembling and shaking and cupping my hands around my mouth so that i will not scream and scare the hell out of all the mom's in the carpool line. truly, the most uncomfortable feeling this type of grief is. my mom's last day was spent struggling for breath, heaving and sucking in air that was not adequate enough to keep her body going. i watched her body change, before my eyes. hands, feet, under her eyes turning blue and discolored. i discovered that that was because her suffocating organs were trying to stay oxygenated so all her blood flow was going to that area and pulling the blood away from the extremeties and elsewhere. it was such a diffinite change and it freaked me out in a big way. i couldn't do anything for her. the panting, it was maddening. i wanted to make sure that she was not scared or panicked like one would feel if they truly were suffocating. the sweet nurses assured me that she was okay. i don't know about that. i will have to believe them. i have never believed in euthanasia more than i did at that moment. i just wanted to help her. of course, as soon as i left, so did she. dammit! there is a great line in "fried green tomatoes at the whistle stop cafe" that i love and it was said by cicely tyson; "miz ruth was a lady and a lady always knows when to leave." well, miz norma jean was a lady and she knew when to leave and she kicked lingering in the ass and told it whats what. so, i am now going through the motions. checking on my daddy, remembering and crying. hoping that she knew how much i loved her. i hope i never have to witness such an agonizing death and yet i am so greatful that i did. what a dichotomy. what a wonder. what a gift. thanks to the sweetest friends and family. i do know that my mom knew i was loved and that made her feel a bit better about the fact that she was dying. she told me so so it was true.

gratitude

thank you lingering for letting my mom pass over. so, what now. the business of living. i am hit with so many memories flooding in with the greatest of strength. i will write of this for some time and keep her memory going for me and those i love. she was the most wonderful woman. my sweet daddy cannot even form a sentence. today, all that her could get out was " she sure was nice." i know what he means to say he just has the words stuck in his throat.... 90 miles to reminisce. that sounds like a country/western song.

deluge

i sat with my dying mother yesterday and held her hand and waited. still. each breath was labored and rattling and her chest was heaving up and down so fast it resembled a sprinter after a race. she didn't open her eyes once yesterday. she is conscious but not "there". it is so weird. it is so humorous in a glib, morose way, to be sitting with your mom, telling her how much you are going to miss her, how much you love her and what not when in the background all you can here is the contestants on the "price as right" blurt out prices for a really, tacky, faux walnut dining room set. it is quite funny to say the least. the grief comes in such waves. in the hottest bath i could stand last night, i fell apart, again. not just crying but the kind of crying that comes so deep from inside. at one point it did not even sound human. grief takes on so many forms. well, i am older now and healthier and plan to feel this grief. i will not drink it away, smoke it away, vomit it up or bleed it out. i will feel it. it will not kill me. i will honor it because i love my momma and that is what she would want.

vigil

just waiting and waiting. back to the hospital this morning for the day. dad is there, not leaving. worried, with a cracking voice, trying to hold back tears he says, "i hope it is today." so do i, please. she needs peace.

lingering

well, i was not prepared for the appearance of my mom today. not in the least. you see, i was sick so i missed the last visit. how rapidly she has changed. i walked into the room and immediately fell apart. she is going, and i think it will be very soon. shallow, rapid, wheezy breaths. lips parted and thick, white thrush coats her tongue and lips it is the body breaking done i guess and it is unsettling. i went over, kissed her and immediately called my brother because i was sure she was going at any moment. i thought i was prepared but all along i was just freaking out because i wanted to make sure she wasn't afraid or in pain. the nurse comes in, changes the water on her oxygen, takes her pulse and sticks a swab of gylcerin on my mom's lips and tongue. sweet mom sucks on it like a starving infant. she is so thirsty and so dry-mouthed. it breaks my heart. i don't think that she noticed me right then so i got in her line of sight and she said "hey alley". this visit was hard. for weeks she has laid under a mound of blankets, barely moving, sleeping constantly. now, she kicks the covers off and is so restless, moving from side to side, moaning and wheezing. she keeps trying to sit up. every now and then she takes these breaths, let's them out really slow and i think "shit, this is it" and then she breaths in, deep and rattling, again. she squeezes my hand tight. i lean over and say, "momma, it is okay, mark and michelle, chris and i and daddy have all come to see you, we will be okay, you don't have to hang on, you can let go." she squeezes my hand and says, feebly, "okay". still, though, she is hanging on. how cruel this part is. this is not living, this is existing. i don't know what to do. it is so hard to see her struggle and i want to help her some how. i don't know what to do and god help me it is not up to me. she is so helpless, small. death is tangible, one can feel it, smell it, embrace, caress and hope for it. lingering is also tangible. lingering is having death hover above the dying person, poking fun at , teasing, bullying, making that person wait and wait and wait. lingering is drawing out life and exhausting the person who is waiting. it is cruel and manipulative. i am angry at lingering. i want to beat it down, i want to "take it to the wood shed" and beat the shit out of it. i want to have a face to face and "come to jesus" meeting with lingering and tell it to get the fuck away from my mom and let her please pass over. i will sweet talk lingering if it will help, just please get on with it. she has worked long and hard enough. be merciful and let her rest. please.

bedside

so, i am now 45. grateful for the fun times i had. extremely sore from the biggest, america's funniest home video worthy, fall... it is all on film... heading to montgomery again. this is the last birthday spent with my mother as a living woman. i am sad. she is slowly slipping over every day. she has stopped eating and just continues to wither. i accept it. today though, i am really really sad. who is gonna drive me crazy with questions now? i feel untethered, scattered. the weight of the reality that she is going to die very soon hits me hard. i feel like i am going to lose part of my identity. thought i was ready, today, not so much. i am angry at it all. the cancer that has ravaged her gorgeous body, the pain she is in. everything. all of this makes for some good angry energy which has truly helped me as far as training for this marathon. my mom has never seen me run a race but she always called me afterwards; telling me to "soak my muscles, drink a lot of water, rest, i love you hon". won't hear that anymore. what comes next? i am a planner, i want to know what to feel next so that i can cross that off my list of what i am "supposed" to be feeling. thank god for therapy on monday. i know i can get through this, i can and will. i just am going to miss this woman terribly. each time i see her she is smaller, uncovering her so that i can massage her legs is always a shock. she just gets smaller and smaller. i will sit with her, i will cry i will hold her hand and i will tell her "thank you" for giving me all the parts of her, i will thank her for raising this self-sufficient, tenacious, strong, stoic, attention seeking, loyal, loving, compassionate angry woman who is her daughter. i will thank her for giving me the ability to make it through difficulties, i will thank her for teaching me how to forgive. i love you mom, and i am going to miss you more than i ever thought possible.......i hope she knows that........ooxx allison ann your daughter.

regal

My mom has very strong features. i wish i new her heritage.. i need to research.... she is a stylish woman, still. even laying in her hospital bed she has on a matching pajama outfit, not the humiliating robe the hospital provides... usually she has on this beautiful, aqua sweater and always her white turban and big glasses. she has always been stylish. i remember looking at photos of her when she was younger and she always was so put together. all the slides of her younger years as a single woman living in dallas. she had the most gorgeous, svelte, long body.. legs for days. 5"11 and 120 lbs. one of my favorite pictures is of her, sitting on a serape, somewhere at a lake in texas. she has her legs crossed like a yoga pose. she is in one of those ultra 50's bathing suits, sleeveless. her hair is perfect and her skin looks tanned. she is smiling... her gorgeous hands are visible. one touching her leg and the other is grasping an oil can sized, schlitz beer. she looks happy. that is the picture i am going to have tatooed on my back. even after married life and 4 kids she kept her style. even when she was out back gardening she was poised. i got my good posture and stature from her i believe, that plus years of ballet. still, she carried herself as though she meant business, and, she did. now, she is shrunken and small, curled and often in a semi-fetal position. odd colored skin and pale lips. she is surrounded by medical equipment and loud noises and odd smells. even, as she lays in that hospital bed, dying, she has dignity and regalness. she is a goddess and a queen, a pioneer woman and an intellectual, a diety and a force to be reckoned with...soon she will be a sweet spirit hovering over me and my family. soon she will be free of the pain that causes grimaces. still, i will remember my momma, the one who was the most brave.

questions

on this sundays visit i plan to ask my mom questions about her. she told me the last time that she had a happy life "for the most part". i know more about my dad and his upbringing, his immigrant parents who came from lithuania and of his childhood in chicago. my mom, not so much. i know she was born and grew up in the small town of prescott, arkansas. her dad was a farmer, her mom was a homemaker. i know snippets. i regret not finding out more. i want to know what she wanted to be. what she loved, what made her angry, what she got on a "soap-box" about. i know her little idiosyncrasies but i want to know what makes her tick so to speak. perhaps i have waited to late. i hope not. some days it will hit me, the fact that she won't be here. who will i call for recipes? who will i call when i am sick? who will drive me crazy with questions.?

birthday

friday i will be 45. i got a birthday card from my mom today. i wonder if she signed it before she got so sick or if my dad got her to sign it. it was in her handwriting. this will be the last birthday that she will be here for; well, here in a sense of the word. i wish that i could call her and talk to her. i will see her on sunday and tell her of all the fun i had and of all the lovely friends in my life. i never knew if my mom was proud of me when i was young. i always felt "less than". i know that she is now. she probably was then but she is the type of person who is not overly affectionate or overly verbal when expressing feelings. she is quite reserved. however, there is the zany side of my mom that she has bestowed upon me. she is the one who taught me to thrift shop and to make "do" with what you have. she is the most amazing cook who believed that a ton of butter always made something taste much better. she loved to shop. if the rapture were to happen any time soon she could feed the entire city of montgomery on rotels, cambells soup (in several varieties) chicken a la king (daddy's fave) and various types of cookies. you could go into my parent's home and open any drawer in the house and there would be at least 3 items. 1. a bag of either lemon drops or werther's butterscotch 2. a brush3. make-up of some type. along with these items would be lip balm, gum, jewelry, nail files and rolls of coins. i don't know why she bought so much of the same thing. i don't buy any lotions or such any more because i can just go home and shop at the drug store of norma jean. if you took all of her lotions and put them together you could fill a bathtub. i love these things about her. these crazy idiosyncracies. she is a funny, eccentric, strong woman. she raised 4 kids and was an air force wife and moved as from all over. alaska to florida. took care of us when my dad was in viet nam. she drove, while 8 months pregnant with a station wagon full of kids and a dog from ft. walton beach fla. to andalusia to get out of hurricane camille's path. she held it together. she is still holding on. i want her to know that she doesn't have to any more.

alike

my mom drives me crazy. it is true. she has the ability to get "under my skin" like no one's business and she passed that on to me. i work on that every day. however, it is part of who i am. i live the closest to my parents so i visit often. i would go to montgomery at least once a month and stay the weekend; just to re-connect. it made my mom happy to have someone to dote on and talk to. she had my dad but i think it is different when your child is around. i am a kid again when i around my mom. i had been sick for the passed week and realized that i used to call my mom because i knew that she would worry and say all the comforting words and that she would want me to get some rest. dear, sweet friends took care of me that week but there is just something about a momma. now, it is me who is fretting, and comforting her and my father. i go into her room and notice that she is slumped over to one side because of the tumor along her spine and she is asleep and when i see her it is as if she is not real, a facade of sorts. i get closer and bend down and say "hey momma" and she opens her eyes and out comes a feeble "hi darlin". it is heartbreaking. she smiles. she never complains and if she does it is only because we are "messing with her" too much. mostly she just wants to sleep. i slowly slide the little white turban that is covering her bald head and gently rub lotion on her scalp which feels like sandpaper because of the hair trying to grow there. then, i take her hands out from under her covers and massage lotion into her knarled, veiny, beautiful hands. my mom had the most gorgeous, strong nails. they used to untie a knot in old sneakers, remove splinters and pinch us when we were misbehaving. now, they are broken off, brittle and dis-colored from all the chemo. she likes it when i hold her hand and i do too. i sit there, while she dozes off and watch some bad television while tears are streaming down my face. every now and then i kiss her hand and then i lean back in that uncomfortable nursing home chair and close my eyes. i have been video taping my visits with her because i want to have a tangible memory. i want to remember her in her last moments. i know, to some, that may sound morbid but not to me. she knows i am doing it. what a gift to be present as someone you love is making their journey out of this life, their life. i will never forget it. i will always cherish this time and i will honor it in the way that i best now how.

well, things just seem to keep pouring out of me. what am i gonna miss the most? there are so many many things. she drives me crazy! i also see me in her and her in me almost every time i see her. my mom has the most beautiful legs. strong calves like a dancer. she gave those to me. i am grateful for that. those strong calves have held me up for many years, through the hardest times of my life. those strong calves led me to opportunities and desires, to places and people, to love and so many adventures. those calves buckled under me and dropped me, hard, to the ground when the worst thing that could have ever happend to me did. however, those same calves, tight, sinewy, muscular and strong lifted me up once again so that i could head down my little path towards what ever i wanted. those calves were my momma's. she drove me crazy and we did not get along and for the longest time i didn't even like her but still, she was my mom and i was her daughter and i am going to miss her.

my mother is norma jean, she is 78 and she is dying of breast cancer. i am writing this to help me to remember and to make sense of all the emotions that are coming up with this process. there is nothing i can compare it too. even though i have witnessed the agonizing death this same disease tortured two dear friends with, i cannot compare it to what i am witnessing with my mom. don't know where to start. so i will just go. a rambling story which is par for the course for me. my mom used to say that i talked in run on sentences and would never take a breath. always excited and eager. anyone who knows me can attest to that fact. so, i will begin my story; the memories i have of my momma. these are my memories and mine alone. no one elses, i cherish these memories and challenge anyone who says that they do not exist or that that is not the way things happened. this is my experience. so, here it is. my mother and i butted heads from the beginning and through out my life and here i am by here bedside as much as i possibly can be. the first time i saw her, in the hospital section of the nursing home, i lost my shit and bawled my eyes out. there was a shell of the woman i knew. i had seen her begin to deteriorate over time but nothing prepared me for how she looked. a shell. there was nothing to her. truly, skin and bones. she had an odd yellow-gray tint to her skin which reminded me of dull paint water. no hair, no eyelashes. blueish lips.. this was my mom, norma jean. all i wanted to do was crawl in bed with her and hold her. all the past just slipped away. the anger, sadness, disappointment, betrayal. i just wanted to make sure she was okay. it was one of the most amazing, heart-breaking moments of my life and that is when i began to let go.

norma jean chamley bulka