Reflections A - Z challenge 2015

Two days after her 73rd birthday my Mum took her final breath. She had Alzheimers and Motor neurone disease. For her final 3 months I was her main carer. A privilege I am grateful for and will cherish forever. This years #atozchallenge theme will focus on being a carer / care-giver. 

Remember to care for the carers.

A to Z Challenge 

REFLECTIONS 2015

As usual I use the Reflections post to give the A-Z challenge organisers some feedback as requested.

I also use it to link all my posts together, and give a little commentary on each.

Things I loved about participating in the 2015 #atozchallenge:

1. I did it. 
2. Caught up with bloggers that I haven't connected with since last year.
3. Connected with new bloggers that are on a similar journey to me.
4. Received supportive and encouraging comments that helped me finish the challenge.
5. The process of writing, with a firm structure but loose boundaries, has helped me  become a better writer.
6. The theme helped my healing process and seems to have given some other people an opportunity to share their own stories.

 Things I would like to see changed:

1. Nothing. The host's/helpers and overall challenge are great. Sure there are plenty of people that sign up and don't start or finish the challenge... but your system of removing them is good enough, and done by a dedicated bunch. I have noticed over the last couple of years people seem to complain most about things that can't be changed... 

Things I would change about myself.

1. Comment on and visit more blogs, I noticed a huge difference in the amount of visits to my page as a result of not blog hopping.  I do know it's one of the main points of the challenge... This years journey was just more personal.
2. Get in early - I almost forgot to sign up to the link list.  
3. Offer to be co-host/assistant.  I loved helping last year. It is a good way of forcing myself to visit more blogs. 

Here are the links to all my posts for this years challenge:


A to Z challenge Theme reveal.
I chose to write about the one thing I couldn't stop thinking about.

Anger and Anxiety
From the moment I saw the message that Mum had 6 months left to live, I have had a lot of reasons to be angry.  I think the main reason I did this years theme was to release what remained.

Bemused and Befuddled
Here's a fun poke at some of the baffling situations many carers experience.

Conflicted
How much good are we really doing when keeping someone alive prolongs their suffering.

Denying Degeneration
Maybe she was just a great actress - When her friends bid her farewell, she did show her movie star smile

Easter without her
If I had to choose a single holiday to start our year of firsts without her -  Easter wins.

Freedom from Fear
No I'm not a burglar, it's me your daughter.

Genes
Would you like to know how long you have left to live?

Hugs in Hell
When living on earth becomes it's own type of Hell.

Inhalation annihilation
Imagine your head underwater and only a tiny straw to breathe through - for months.

Joy - An ode to
Joy was her name.

Knowledge and Knowing
They are intertwined but there is a difference.

Laughter is the best medicine
Some of the bad jokes I used to tell her and how they make me laugh.

My birthday
Sharing my last birthday with Mum

Now or Never
Preparing for death.

Omnipresence
It doesn't matter what you believe in some things just can't be explained or understood.

Palliative care team
They are just like any other humans, some are better at their job than others.

Quibbles
When no means yes and hot means cold.

Respite from Rage
Even the strong need a place to rest.

Soup
A recipe of sorts.  This soup probably stopped her from succumbing to MND much sooner.

Thank-you
I am grateful - but why is caring for loved ones a privilege?

Undertakers
Rituals are for the living. I'm so glad I didn't let the undertakers take her when they first came.

Visitors
A list of do's and don'ts -

Worry Jar
$1 for every worry. She was happy to pay.

X - eXonerated
No-one imagined this rebel child would be the one to care for Mum. I knew all along.

Young again
What happens when you walk in your daughters shoes.

Zenosyne
Time flies faster the further you go.

I hope you enjoyed my theme. Click the link for more Reflections posts by other challengers...

See you for the 2016 #atozchallenge (if not before :) 

***

I use #atozchallenge when sharing my favourite posts.

Like Reflex Reactions on Facebook

Follow @ReflexReactions on Twitter

Add me to your circles on Google+ 

Learn more about:

 The A to Z challenge here.

Zenosyne. #atozchallenge Care for the carers.

Two days after her 73rd birthday my Mum took her final breath. She had Alzheimers and Motor neurone disease. For her final 3 months I was her main carer. A privilege I am grateful for and will cherish forever. This years #atozchallenge theme will focus on being a carer / care-giver.

Remember to care for the carers.  

Zenosyne

Zenosyne: A sense that time keeps going faster.

Etymology: From Greek, Zeno is derived from Zeno's Paradox, which asks how a person can walk from one point to another if they must first carry out a series of ever-shrinking steps, + Mnemosyne, the personification of memory in Ancient Greek mythology. How can we live our lives while each passing year feels shorter than the year before? 

 It's a made up word by John Koenig over at Dictionary of obscure sorrows here's the Facebook page. 

I found him when the article "23 Perfect Words For Emotions You Never Realised Anyone Else Felt," appeared in my Facebook newsfeed yesterday.

The best example I have for zenosyne is that the 2015 A to Z challenge seemed to fly by much faster than my first two. 

I can remember them both in a blink of an eye, this year's theme about my Mum will be with me for a while.

Soon my time with her will feel like a fleeting moment.  

At times when everything was an effort she would often say 'It's terrible to get old." I'd always reply 'There's only one thing worse... and that's if you'd never got old at all." 

***

If you have followed along and commented thank you for keeping me motivated. My stats show that many more people have read my blog this month, I hope you enjoyed my words and thank you too. 

***

I use #atozchallenge when sharing my favourite posts.

Like Reflex Reactions on Facebook

Follow @ReflexReactions on Twitter

Add me to your circles on Google+ 

***

Learn more about:

 The A to Z challenge here.

Young again. #atozchallenge Care for the carers.

Two days after her 73rd birthday my Mum took her final breath. She had Alzheimers and Motor neurone disease. For her final 3 months I was her main carer. A privilege I am grateful for and will cherish forever. This years #atozchallenge theme will focus on being a carer / care-giver.

Remember to care for the carers.  

Young again.

Her flawless skin, laugh and smile made a lot of people think she was younger than years.  

Her attention to detail, strength and loyalty made her seem older.

That's her sitting in the middle. 18 years old showing off the green dress she sewed for herself, in preparation for her migration to Australia.

Even after the Doctors, therapists and everyone else told her to stop wearing them - she wore shoes with high heels.  

I lent her my boots when we visited a farm once. She said she felt like me. Then she hopped and jumped like she was young again.

***

I use #atozchallenge when sharing my favourite posts.

Like Reflex Reactions on Facebook

Follow @ReflexReactions on Twitter

Add me to your circles on Google+ 

***

Learn more about:

 The A to Z challenge here.

X - eXonerated. #atozchallenge Care for the Carers

Two days after her 73rd birthday my Mum took her final breath. She had Alzheimers and Motor neurone disease. For her final 3 months I was her main carer. A privilege I am grateful for and will cherish forever. This years #atozchallenge theme will focus on being a carer / care-giver.

Remember to care for the carers.  

X - eXonerated 

So many of Mum's friends said they would never have guessed that it was me that would take on the role as her carer:

Me the black sheep.

Me who taught her how to swear.

Me who fought back and returned the key.

Me who greyed her hair.

Me who travelled far away.

Still they say I'm hard to understand. 

All the frustration, tears and pain I caused in the beginning 

eXonerated

by the love, support and care they witnessed in the end. 

***

I use #atozchallenge when sharing my favourite posts.

Like Reflex Reactions on Facebook

Follow @ReflexReactions on Twitter

Add me to your circles on Google+ 

***

Learn more about:

 The A to Z challenge here.

Worry Jar. #atozchallenge. Care for the carers.

Two days after her 73rd birthday my Mum took her final breath. She had Alzheimers and Motor neurone disease. For her final 3 months I was her main carer. A privilege I am grateful for and will cherish forever. This years #atozchallenge theme will focus on being a carer / care-giver.

Remember to care for the carers.  

Worry Jar

"Please Mum, don't worry"

"I'm your Mother, it's my job to worry."  Of all the misguided lessons she'd learnt this was the most destructive of them all.   

I started a worry jar. One dollar for each worry. Repeated worries cost double. I told her it was the easiest money I'd ever make. So entrenched was her duty to worry, she smiled and said she was willing to pay. 

I tried to show her what an empty jar looked like. 

Worry gave her a purpose. Her creative imagination wasted on wrestling anxiety and strengthening sorrows.

'Why worry?' I'd recite what I remembered of the Irish philosophy stuck on her fridge as we were growing up. '...Either you are healthy or sick... if you're healthy you have nothing to worry about.  If you are sick you will either get better or die....if you die you have nothing to worry about' - or something like that.

Every afternoon around 4:00 o'clock, she'd worry about where the kids were. The neighbourhood's kids had become adults decades ago. I asked her all sorts of questions. 'Whose kids, how many of them, how old are they, where were they before..?' I knew she meant her own babies but still I tried to move a mind that had lost its way in 2012, and lingered at times in long ago. 

In the end I stuck to reassuring her that everyone she worried about was happy and safe.  

"Thank-you. That's all that matters." she'd say.

One morning I wrote her a note. Anything written down was important and trusted. It worked better than the worry jar. I gave her the same note almost every day. It would have been better without the date. 

"2014?" she'd question. 'Already.' I'd say.

***

I use #atozchallenge when sharing my favourite posts.

Like Reflex Reactions on Facebook

Follow @ReflexReactions on Twitter

Add me to your circles on Google+ 

***

Learn more about:

 The A to Z challenge here.

Visitors. #atozchallenge Care for the carers

Two days after her 73rd birthday my Mum took her final breath. She had Alzheimers and Motor neurone disease. For her final 3 months I was her main carer. A privilege I am grateful for and will cherish forever. This years #atozchallenge theme will focus on being a carer / care-giver.

Remember to care for the carers.  

Visitors

Mum always welcomed visitors with some liquid stimulant or courage -espresso coffee or strong liquor in delicate glasses. Children could eat as many sweets and biscuits as they dared. No belly left her house, less than full. 

Genes. #atozchallenge Care for the Carers

Two days after her 73rd birthday my Mum took her final breath. She had Alzheimers and Motor neurone disease (MND). For her final 3 months I was her main carer. A privilege I am grateful for and will cherish forever. This years #atozchallenge theme will focus on being a carer / care-giver.

Remember to care for the carers.  

Genes

Nobody really knows what causes Motor Neurone Disease or Alzheimers Disease.

Mum had both, and as far as I know no-one in her family has had either disease.

Easter without her. #atozchallenge Care for the Carers.

Two days after her 73rd birthday my Mum took her final breath. She had Alzheimers and Motor neurone disease. For her final 3 months I was her main carer. A privilege I am grateful for and will cherish forever. This years #atozchallenge theme will focus on being a carer / care-giver.

Remember to care for the carers.  

Easter without her.

November 1st is All Souls day. Last year I attended the international mass held at the cemetery for the departed each year, with both my parents for the first and last time.  

Denying Degeneration. #atozchallenge - Care for the Carers

Two days after her 73rd birthday my Mum took her final breath. She had Alzheimers and Motor neurone disease. For her final 3 months I was her main carer. A privilege I am grateful for and will cherish forever. This years #atozchallenge theme will focus on being a carer / care-giver.

Remember to care for the carers.  

Denying Degeneration

One of the symptoms of Alzheimers/Dementia can be denial, it is also a defence mechanism. 

Alzheimer's, old boyfriends and Aussie slang.

Follower or followed, the 2013 A to Z April Challenge, probably bought us together.  I joined at the last minute and embarked on a sleepless month of writing, editing, re-writing and most importantly reading hundreds of blogs. The challenge gave me a new love of the written word and took me places I never imagined - did I mention hundreds of blogs i.e thousands of blog posts.  I even scored a monthly gig posting anonymously for another blog, bring on more of that kind of work - please.

If you want to join up click the link under the image.  Arlee Bird created the challenge, you'll find links to his page and all the other hosts there too.

sign up to the challenge link here

Last year my theme was Healing with Words - based around a deck of magic spirit cards that guided me through many of lives lessons, during my twenties.  Single words that were a seeming, random catalyst for change. A change that was desperately needed. The aim was to find my writing voice.  I'm not sure that happened, I dabble between poetic and prose, mostly prose, I have to edit out the rhyming a lot.

This year I have signed up early, with any luck I will get a lot of my posts written and scheduled well before the start date... or procrastinate, as is my way, and leave it to the last minute once again.

The one major thing getting in the way of being organised is I'm stuck between 3 themes.  A theme is not necessary, this in itself could be my fourth theme, but let's not confuse things anymore than necessary.

Here are my themes so far.

1.  , Aussie slang, as mentioned in my Reflections post.  For the traveller to Australia or a new immigrant these are invaluable, for the curious wordsmith a good laugh.  Some make perfect sense some make none at all... I'm pretty sure I could 'ave a go' without making a 'Wally' of myself, but 'fair dinkum' there are teatowels in every tourist shop with slang on them, and it might be a bit 'daggy.'

2. 26 boyfriends.  From my first crush at 5 years old to my current love story, and all the unrequited loves, mistakes, heart breaking and heart mending romances in between. A snapshot of the many boys and men in my life seems like a fun idea.  A is for Adam - the first love. B is for Brett - my favourite mistake. C is for Con - his mother hated me. D is for Dean - Summer of love love love. E is for Eddie - that cute Scandinavian kid. etc etc

and finally

3.  Remember the time... A journey into Alzheimers.  My recent trip to Australia inspired this one.  My mother was diagnosed in 2012 she forgets things and doesn't even remember she has Alzheimers.  I'm not sure where this theme will take me, the story is fresh.  While watching anyone succumb to a disease is horrible, forgetting can be fun and despite the tragedy of it all we managed to have a lot of laughs. They say comedy is tragedy with good timing and I feel comfortable sharing.  

So bloggers, help me decide should it be 1 2 or 3?

I'll be doing the big A to Z theme reveal on March 21st - find the linky list here


In the meantime, I'll be brushing up on how to do links and visiting some of my favourite blogs from 2013 to see who else will be signing up.

Blog description too long - so now it's my second blog

My first blog post pretty much describes why I was first inspired to start this blog. Now I choose to continue it after a reflexology client, and now dear friend of mine created a water painting of a dessert landscape with a single house and windmill on it. She messaged me to say it reminded her of me. This caused a reflex reaction, a term I was once going to use as my reflexology business name. The message provided me with a chance to reflect on what her thoughts might mean, what could I learn from from that dessert scene?
My next post will contain some of the thoughts and dialogue from that original message. While I'm not about to promise to write every day I will make an effort to write more often, about my reactions to the world around me. I imagine it will cover topics about my relationships with other people and myself, immigration and being an expat, life in Australia and now Denmark, health and healing, Alzheimer's (especially if my mother is diagnosed with it next week), food glorious food, and probably music and love, that just about covers everything! I have been told so many times I write well and that it would be healing for myself and others, which has always been a central theme in my life.
I know the popular belief is to dream your dream and make it happen but this has never worked for me, I talk myself out of everything and lose interest quickly, yet I have travelled the world and been privy to so many experiences, completely unplanned.  

I tend to live my life more in retrospect. Realising upon reflection, that I had a sign or message of things to come but only understand what it all means once I get there...now the message is to write, so hopefully my future blogs will be the first steps to where I am meant to be next. 

Until recently a sense of belonging has always eluded me, but things have changed and for now, as long as I can eat a variety of delicious food, spend time with my loved ones and dance occasionaly, I will always feel at home.

I was going to make the previous paragraphs my blog description but apparently that is restricted to 500 characters.


Best wishes
Ida