Happy Mother's Day

So it's Mother's Day.

This is a day my own mother has traditionally hated. I'm not sure I've ever figured out quite why, exactly, she dislikes it so much - I get explanations ranging from "it's a stupid Hallmark holiday" to it making her miss her own mother too much. But, since this year I'm grateful that my mother is even alive after this whole fiasco, so we celebrated it by spending most of the day together.

It's been a rough weekend. My dad's hopefully getting out of the hospital tomorrow. But the weekend (or, you know, past two months) has been kind of crazy, so I took a couple of hours this morning and went to Starbucks. I got caught up on my discharge summaries (let's not talk about my clinic notes) just in time to go back on service tomorrow, and met Matt for coffee and good conversation. I felt a little better after that. My mom and I went to the Mothers' Day brunch here at Shady Pines, which was absolutely delicious. My mom doesn't talk much during meals these days, so it was a lot of chewing in silence, but it was still nice to be in the thick of things. We then got in the car (which she's getting better at) and drove around looking at houses in the neighborhood, and found a lot lot lot of great options for me to talk about with the realtor. We came home, I fell asleep for a minute and then went back out to Target, came home, made dinner, installed the transfer bench in the shower, and then my mom and I watched Betty White on last night's SNL (my mom's commentary? "That was weird." I, however, loved it). And then we got my mom showered, which was a 45 minute ordeal. And sent me off on a whole new spiral succumbing to the gravity of this whole situation.

Matt and I talked a little this morning about the cultural differences between his WASPy self and my Greekness. He was like, "I'd probably be more hands-off about the whole thing, but my parents are also younger and I have a high-functioning sister." Right, I said, and you're a son. I'm an only child, and a daughter, and in my culture, that means something entirely different. And sometimes that difference is wonderful, meaningful, amazing. Sometimes that something is a jagged little pill.

There have been other aspects of this weekend weighing heavily on me, but that's another post for another day. Meanwhile, I have a 7am therapy patient tomorrow. I'd better get to sleep...