Mothers Day.

Mother's day is hard for me.

Don't get me wrong I loved and miss my mother. But Mothers day for me is a combination of missing my mom and dealing with my deep rooted guilt for abandoning her. It's also hard watching people celebrate and acknowledge their mothers knowing that I never did truly acknowledge her or appreciate her and it could fairly be said I failed to do these things at a time when it was most needed. I also abandoned my sisters and brother to deal with my Mother and her sickness while I went about making my own way in the world barely glancing to look back.

My mother some of you may or may not know suffered from MS for many many years before complications of living with the disease eventually killed her. She first noticed it when I was young. As a young lad I watched my mother go to work every morning until due to issues with her fingers her ability to type, take shorthand etc was eroded to the point where she couldn't work. So she quit and stayed home. So I got to spend time with her doing things that some of my siblings did not.

We would go shopping, walk to the park, walk to the food counter at the Arcade. My memories of my mother are filled with being outside, swimming, walking etc.  I remember a woman that my brother for example never got to know. By the time he was born she was trapped in the shell what was her body while MS ate her from the inside out.

But just like my mother the MS did not stay still and while I was seeing the active and vibrant Betty Constantine, unseen by myself it was slowly chewing  away at her. As a child,  I was not aware of this and didn't understand the changes that were happening,  nor did I understand my parents desperate struggles to try and stay ahead of the illness. My mother for example, decided to get her driver's license when I was a young teenager. I remember being excited.  We were finally going to own a car! We could go places without a bus! No more walking a couple miles to cadets! No more walking downtown, or to the mall. No more bumming rides off of my friends! I was stoked for my family moving into the have column!

What I didn't get was that my mother was getting her license because she

couldn't walk to the store for groceries anymore. She couldn't take me to the store to buy me a pair of jeans. I remember being excited when my parents sat me down to explain that I was big enough to buy my own clothes and that from now on when I needed some that I would be allowed to go and pick out my own clothes/sneakers etc. I was not attuned enough to what was going on around me. One of the problems with ADHD sometimes is being blissfully ignorant of cue's and signs that other pick up on all of the time. Sometimes things get lost in the morass of information. I wasn't being given freedom, my mother was devising a way to cope with her declining mobility. The erosion of her mobility led to the gradual shrinking of her world. At first we would go places but it soon became difficult and things began to change. All without my knowing or understanding. She drove for only four years at which point that was no longer an option.

As time passed and I got older my world started slowly expanding. My mother got left behind. Her world was shrinking. She couldn't go to inspections. Or school Graduations. Or family gatherings. Or even the bathroom without help or assistance. Her world shrank from the Province, to the city, the neighbourhood, the house, to her newly built bedroom and eventually her wheelchair and her bed. We rebuilt the house from the inside out to accommodate her. We installed handrails in all the hallways and stairs. We added a bathroom to the dining room. made the dining room her bedroom, we added a door to the new bedroom so we could get her into a vehicle if we needed. We cut down the fence to the garden and made it a driveway alongside the new bedroom we made. She got a cage while I had the world opening up to me. I started working away on the mainland every summer. I traveled the region to visit friends. I became an CAF reserve Officer. I started going to Memorial University. (I have vivid memories of going home between classes to lift my mother out of her bed and to put her in her wheelchair. Of leaving university to help my 60+ year old father carry my mother up and down the stairs.) And to my shame I was annoyed and felt "put out" sometimes as my mother's illness wasn't convenient to MY life. I spent more and more time away from the house with my friends and immersed myself in the things I wanted for me. I soon became a person who left clothes at my house, but didn't really live there. I passed through a lot though...

Eventually I approached Graduation and had decisions to make. I decided I wanted to leave Newfoundland. I felt that employment opportunities and the future for the province of my birth were not bright so I would make my way on the mainland. I made this decision in complete isolation from anyone. I didn't discuss it. I didn't plan it. And my mother supported me 100%. I had no indication from her or anyone in my family that it was a bad decision. And until the day I left home I never gave it a second thought. And I would dearly love to say that on that day I had an awakening, a revelation that provided me with perspective and understanding, but I didn't. I remember walking into her bedroom to say goodbye. She had made my father get her up and dress her and sit her up in her wheelchair so she could say good bye to me. Her eyes were watery. And I was oblivious. I remember thinking she is sad because I am going. But it was so much more. I knew I wasn't going back and I am certain she knew it too. She knew that she would hear from me less and less. She knew I was leaving for good. She knew my self-centric world where others barely existed would keep me away.  And she let me go. And I left.

I spoke with my mother after I left the island. I called on Mothers day, or her Birthday, Wedding anniversaries -  if I remembered. And then one day I got a call. Mom was dying. My brother told me, "if you want to see her again you better come home now." I struggled to get home and arrived at the hospital in time to see her. She was so doped up from the drugs I don't even know if, my presence there registered with her. I hope it did. I really hope it did. (The thought it might not haunts me.) And my mother died. Surrounded by my family who had fought with her, comforted her, supported her and been with her.

Oh and me. I was there too. Technically... anyway.

So mothers day is tough for me. Has been for many years. I am hoping to make this one slightly different. I want this one to at least be significant for one reason. I want to shout out not only to the moms,  but to all the son's, daughters, spouses, and family that love and care for those moms. That support them, help them and appreciate them. I want to remind everyone to do what you can when you can.

Because someday you can't. You won't be able too and it will be too late.

I want to apologize to my family for not being the son I should have been.

Love your mother's.

You don't get a second chance.