October 2008

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It was eighteen years ago this weekend when my mother's first stroke was diagnosed. I've been thinking a lot about her, and about how it was that life changed at that point.

The details of that beginning point are in this entry, which I wrote eight years ago. Some of the other entries that month cover the treatment, etc., in case you're not familiar with the story.

What's been on my mind has less to do with those details than with loss and changes. I mentioned to a friend that it was hard to wrap my mind around the fact that is has been eighteen years, because in the same instant it seems both forever ago and much more recent. My friend, who has also known loss and changes, understood.

So those eighteen years have been on my mind. I've had good times and bad, lost some people (in addition to Mother) to death, met some people who have become good friends (including the person with whom the above exchange happened), and am now doing entirely different work.

Not everything has changed, of course. I continue to know and love many of the people who were part of my life well before October 1990.

I've also thought of the things that have changed, including how those changed things (technology, for example) would have worked in the lives of those now gone. Easily obvious: I've long been sorry my mother and I didn't have a chance to use e-mail...we'd have saved a small fortune on phone bills! And there are similar thoughts about other people.

There's not a good ending to this. I can say the years have been interesting, but that would be the understatement of eighteen years. So I'll just say I'm glad I've had the chance to live through them, and to remember.