ObesityHelp

Today was the first full day after my mother's death that I did not have somewhere I HAD to be: someone to pay, arrangements to make, someone to call or console. It was actually very nice to have some autonomy.

I suppose this is the first day of the rest of my life without my mother.

It's strange. I feel...unanchored. I have 2nd and 3rd cousins and whatnot in the area but my brother lives in Indiana and my mom was an only child so there are no aunts, uncles or first cousins. I sort of feel alone. I know I am not. I've built up quite the extended family. But there is something about that blood connection.

You know she and I had the same blood type, which happens to be THE rarest blood type of all of them: AB negative. That fact always sort of made me feel connected to her. We both went through having that God-awful shot during our pregnancies to keep our bodies from building up anti-bodies to the RH factors our babies may or may not have carried (as it turns out I had negative blood my brother is positive. Both my children are positive so that shot actually made it possible for #2 to be born. Left untreated, antibodies to RH factor will attack an RH positive fetus in utero). She often joked that she was glad we had the same blood type because who else was there to give US blood?

Isn't it strange the thoughts you think about a person when they are gone?

I named this post in the still of the night because that's been the hardest time for me. Last night I had a dream that I saw her. She was in her wedding dress and a beautiful head wrap. Her "butt-length" dread locks (she'd admonish me for using the word "dread") were flowing beautifully down her back. her face was full and she was standing upright with her Afro-centric jewelry on. I ran to her and embraced her tightly. She took my head in her hands and caressed my cheek. She took both my hands in hers and squeezed them, but then let them go. She took a step backward and she was as she was in her early 40's, before the locks, with shoulder-length brown permed hair. Another step back and she was as she was in her 30's. And another step back and she was in her 20's wit her big Afro and tiny body. One more step back and she was the little girl I'd seen a million times in my grandfather's photo album and she was flanked on either side by my grandfather, as his younger self and my grandmother, as her younger self. They each took one hand and led her away. As she left she looked back at me over her shoulder and smiled.

It was a nice dream. I woke up crying happy tears. But then as fast as the happiness came, there came the vacant space. The selfish part of me that just wants my mommy back. I just want her to nag me to chop veggies for dinner or to vacuum the carpet correctly like when I was little. I long for her to call and bug me about something one more time or tell a story she's told me two million times. If only she could "hold me hostage" on the phone one last time.

These are the thoughts I have at night. When it is quiet, after the children have gone to sleep.

I don't think she wanted to die. I think she wanted to live but did not want to live the way she was living: in pain, in turmoil, disconnected from the people, places and things she loved. I can feel the feelings that are down below the surface bubbling. I found a grief support group and I intend to go because I know what these feelings can do. And for the life of me I will NOT regress over this. She was so proud of what I'd accomplished. And I am too. I feel like it would be the utmost dishonor to go back to who I was before, what I was before. So I need to figure out how to deal with this place in my life that used to belong to her. I need to figure out how to get through the night and back into the light of day.

I have two very indulged children. In the beginning they were indulged to placate. I couldn’t deal with life so I couldn’t deal with them so I occupied them as best I could. Don’t get me wrong, I know my kids. I talk to them. I hug them. I kiss them. But I’ve also had my fair share (more than actually) of days where I allowed them to watch television or play Xbox or surf the net for HOURS just so they’d be quiet.

So here we are. Both kids are too big for their ages and I really do want to make an effort in earnest to encourage them to care about their health and to take the initiative in being active and healthy. But at the same time…as I said…I have very indulged children. They are resistant, make excuses, everything I used to do.

What I figured was this. I either needed to help them find some activity they REALLY like doing but also an activity they’ve avoided doing for the perception that they cannot do it. The former to be for learning to enjoy activities, the latter being for achievement but also I wanted them to get a little pissed off about not being able to do something. They, like many kids, take the “oh well, can’t do it, guess I won’t even try” approach. I am living proof that thinking does not work!

So fast forward to yesterday. The youngest one (who is the one I am most worried about health-wise) told me some time ago she’d like to go with me in the evenings when I walked. I said ok. Now my goal is not to push her to be a race runner or anything but I did tell her this is a part of my activity for the day so it would not be slow and leisurely walking. She did not seem to mind.

Well, how it played out was a whole different story! The walk began nicely enough. She even wanted to jog a little and so we did. Now anyone who knows me knows that I have a kinship with trees and this particular park has some great ones that I’ve introduced the kids to. At a point in the walking path there is a particularly haunting tree. It’s actually two trees that grew so close together they branch out from one another and look like just one tree. It’s not an easy tree to climb but I learned to climb it. My daughter tries too but has not been successful yet.

We get to the tree and she wants to climb it. Before we started I explained we’d walk the entire loop of the park (the remainder of which was up and then down a hill but on the bright side, at the top of the hill is a beautifully restored pre-antebellum mansion that we like to peek into every now and again). Girlfriend was MAD! She wanted the tree and she wanted it NOW.

And like any 10 year old she began to get obnoxious about it. With each step up the hill she verbalized things she “hates” (thankfully I am not yet one of those things). She hates the trees, she hates the birds, she hates the grass, she hates walking (and she’s never going again).

Now understand this walk is usually my end of the day wind down. It’s how I get into “home” mode. It makes it possible for me to mother these children without going postal. So I am trying…really hard…not to react. I know she wants a reaction.

What’s interesting for me is the WAY I was first inclined to react. I wanted to shake the child and say “Do you know that you are not healthy? Do you know you that you need to be doing this or else you might face a lifetime of obesity and ridicule? Do you know what kind of life that is, how painful it is? Do you???”

But that’s what my mom did to me. Over and over and over again. And slowly but surely a kid who thought she was ok turned into a kid who loathed herself. I don’t want that for my daughter. So after a point I simply went with, “You’re not being very nice. You are welcome to THINK whatever you want to think but please be quiet for a few minutes.” I don’t know if that was right or wrong but it kept me from saying the other things.

So we got around the rest of the loop in good time and we get to the tree. She half-heartedly tries to climb it. Fails. I show her how to climb it: where to put your feet, when to push up, what to grab. She again tries, half-heartedly and again does not make it. Then she proclaims “this tree is stupid and I want to go home!” At this point I said, “fine.” We would be coming back the next day for a walk so if she wanted to try again she’d get the opportunity. But she hung back. In a smaller voice she said, “But I want to climb that tree.”

And I replied, “Would you like me to show you again?” She nodded and I showed her again after which she AGAIN only put partial effort into climbing the tree.

Walking home I was angry. What did she expect? If she didn’t try to really climb the tree she wasn’t going to get up the tree!

But then it occurred to me that maybe why she was frustrated was BECAUSE it was not easy. When she saw me do it, it might have looked easy because I’ve done it so many times I can do it pretty quickly. For her it wasn’t easy. And I believe (though there are few ways to tell) that she felt frustrated because in thinking it SHOULD be easy and accepting that it was NOT easy for her, she made some sort of judgment on herself.

I used to do this a lot in my bigger days. I’d see thin people working out and think it was easy for them where it was so hard for me and I’d resent them so much! Now as a smaller person I know working out is hard at any size. The only difference between then and now is that I am willing to push through the hard parts and keep going.

So that’s my nugget for today. Tonight we go back to the walking path and we walk again. Last night we talked and she said she really wants to learn to climb that tree and I assured her I’d be willing to go with her to the tree as many days as she’d like.

I didn’t like what I saw come out of my daughter yesterday during the walk. I didn’t like what  saw come out of me. We both have stuff to work on. But I pray, SO HARD, that by trying, by facing these issues, by talking things out, by getting pissed off, by setting seemingly impossible goals (and hopefully achieving them) I am helping her escape decades of misery that I inflicted upon myself.