I need to put all the Autism and Special Needs Parenting stuff aside for a little while tonight. I need to instead focus on the very human side of my life. This is the part of my life that isn't influenced by things like Autism. It's actually rare to find things in my life that aren't influenced by all those challenges, but this is a bit different.
Tonight we celebrated my last remaining Grandmother's, 94th birthday. She's actually my last remaining Grandparent period.
The nursing home reserved the common room for us, and we had a pizza party and watched the Cleveland Indians play. My Grandma *loves *the Indians, and we all watched the game with her.
She was having a rough night and wasn't sure she was up to leaving her bed, but she ultimately decided she wanted to go.
It was pretty clear that she was struggling throughout the party, but she never complained, and when I asked if she wanted me to take her back to her room, she said *no. *I think she needed to get back in bed, but she also needed to see everyone.
As I was sitting next to her, it occurred to me that there's a very good chance that this could be the last birthday we get to celebrate with her, and that's very difficult for me to take.
I struggle with death but perhaps not for the same reasons most people do.
When I was a fire/medic, I saw things that most couldn't even imagine. I've seen death far too many times. When you are confronted with death in this manner and with a frequency that most other people never experience, it changes you. It absolutely changed me.
Over the years, I had to become somewhat callous, to do my job in that type of environment. Maybe callus isn't the correct word. I had to become *numb *to death. Every death was heartbreaking for me, but I had to move on quickly because there's always another call. It's the only way you can do that job effectively and not go crazy.
I had to separate myself from the emotions in order to not allow them to control my actions or influence my decisions. That's just the way it was for me. It's self-preservation.
The problem is that over time, that becomes harder and harder to turn off, and it can begin affecting your life outside of the job.
I don't know if any of that makes sense, but the bottom line is that I still don't handle these situations well.
There's this constant internal struggle between the part of me that is conditioned to turn off all emotion and the other part of me that needs to experience it in order to get through the difficult times ahead.
Towards the end of the party, I had to sit out in the hallway because it was too much. I was becoming so focused on my fear of losing her that I was separating myself from the moment, and I didn't want to do that.
I don't know...
This is just very hard, and I'm not doing a great job of dealing with it right now. I spend time with her every single day because I want to but also because I don't know if I'll have another chance.
I'm just in a dark place tonight, and it's driven by grief and fear over something that hasn't even happened yet.
I'm exhausted both physically and emotionally. There are a million reasons for that, and not all of them are related to my Grandmother. My resources are a bit depleted, and my available coping tools are lackluster at the moment.
All that said, it was a great party, and I'm so grateful we had the opportunity to spend this time with her. ❤
