Black Friday here. About to go on a rant using my favorite curse word, so if you are fucking offended by the word "fuck", read no further and downvote my final writeup for Iron Noder for whatever fucking reasons you can fucking justify, then feel all smug and self-righteous as you look at your fucking face in your fucking mirror while you brush your fucking teeth.
My sister from fucking Virginia is driving up, because apparently as co-health care advocates for my mother, she thinks I'm not up to the fucking challenge. For once, I'd love to do the Darth Vader death grip and say, "I find your lack of faith disturbing," to my sister, who fucking waffles back and forth on what to do and how to handle things regarding my mother.
She actually told me NOT TO SAY "the F word" because it wasn't professional and it upsets our mother. My fucking response was, "I'm not a professional like you and Mom doesn't care if I say fuck. I asked her two years ago, when she almost died then." My sister said she was okay with frigging and I said, "Fuck, no."
No one else from our fucking family made the fucking effort to attend Thanksgiving dinner at Pine Acres, where my mother is now on oxygen 24-fucking-7, except my husband, our two sons and me. Last week, I saw the invitation for family and friends to join and said, "Fuck, yeah."
Every Thanksgiving in my entire fucking life, my Mom was there or it was at her house or mine. So, this year just because she's in a fucking nursing home and she's in congestive heart failure, hooked up to fucking oxygen and in a fucking wheelchair, I told my guys we are going there.
I got no fucking complaints from any of them, just a few questions regarding what to wear and if we had reservations. I had called my Mom in the morning to assure her the roads were clear and we would be arriving early. She, GodBlessHer, struggling to fucking breathe, said not to worry about our clothes. She was in her WORKOUT outfit and had already done 2 hours of Physical Therapy!
I wore a dress and makeup, my sons looked fine although my husband needed help, but did take a shower first. As we trooped from the end of the back of the parking lot, my younger son said, "Get all of your fucks out now, Mom, so we can appear normal." I proceeded to use fuck every other word in a story about the previous fucking day; they were all nonplussed, or at least I fucking hoped so.
Entering the building, we were greeted by an attractive receptionist whom my younger son said "was hot" at a prior family discharge meeting that was premature. I could tell my other son agreed. Fucking sparks! Coincidentally, my mother's roomie is in end stage Alzheimer's and no one ever visits plus the staff was tending to her, so we were ushered into a meeting room transformed into a private dining room. Fucking beautiful.
My Mom's name plus four and a RESERVED sign, with decanters of sweet tea and balloons, holiday placemats and autumnal paper napkins, real silverware and wine glasses. A flat screen TV was showing the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Staff exited and entered, full of good cheer. My Mom, at the head of the table, looked pale but happy. My usual rule of no cell phones at the table was cancelled, as some family members sent snapchats and well wishes. It was fucking awesome.
I ran into the head social worker, who had "a family emergency" earlier in the week, as I went to use the ladies' room. Told her how beautiful everything looked, that I was sorry to hear she had some troubles. She burst into tears, telling me her mother had passed away, almost a year to the day her father died, and that both of them had not been the same since her younger brother died several Novembers ago.
In a situation like that, in the hallway of a nursing home, all I could think of was to hug her and pat her back until she composed herself. Sometimes words don't work.