when it all fell apart

I cleaned my closet today. It's large and a walk in and I'm lucky to have it. Sadly it has been stuffed full for a long time, mostly things I can't fit in, or are gastlywhen I'm in them.  It represents my spending during times I was ill, really. And horrific taste. 

Anyway loads of donations are waiting to go. I also cleaned out my dresser finding these cards below from my children. I had to put this on my blog to be able to talk about how I feel finding them.  The saddest part is I only recall one of the cards. So I sat awhile today thinking about how it was for them to have a mom that went to forty colonoscopies, at least forty PET and CAT scans, who had five major gastro bleeds, six bouts of peritonitis, two intestinal cancer surgeries, one 18 day stay in the hospital due to the tumor they didn't figure out, an exploratory surgery, boy maybe twenty kidney stones where I had to go to a hospital suddenly, three kidney stone surgeries one with life threatening infection, unbelievable issues leading to ER visits and then years of struggle with the syrinx and back surgery for a herniated disc after five years. Sadly there is more. I don't recall it all, I know I've given blood samples so much you can't get them now with destroyed veins, hundreds of times, hours of infusions. My kids grew up through this. 

Imagine. 

They made me these cards. They are beautifully drawn. And I just used to pray let me see them to adulthood. It's Luca I think that got the worst of it. Somehow. 

As I looked at all these clothes today throwing them in bags I just felt done with  those days. I honestly can't recall things I know due to anesthetics and damage to my mind. At the stage they made these cards I didn't know a me any more. 

I was lost and broken. 

Except for these children. 

 

 

 

 

This one I remembered. 

 

 
 I have years of beautiful cards they've made. But these ones spoke to me because they were from time wiped away from me. My children never complain but they have rights to. They had a very scary mom. Too often rushed to emergency. I'm so sad for that. I cannot really relate as my mom never was ill. Or dizzy. Or that sick until her stroke when I was no longer little-  probably 20. 

It was awful as it was diagnosed as schizophrenia because she heard voices but it was a stroke in a part of the brain that has aural hallucinations. She suffered double vision and so much more. She was my age now.

I learned in my forties all you think you know of self, life is easily just a perception that alters, radically. It was a lot to learn. 

Then I encountered a person and then some others that stripped away any illusions I might have of finding love and care in others. The forties were hard on me but my unavailability to my kids hurts  I pray I did ok. But I know. 

Their care for me I just see in these cards. My gosh I see it. 

I love them all dearly. Sylvia, Sophia and Luca. The dearest.