Here we are, approaching the end of the year. It’s been nearly three years since my mother has reappeared. I’m no longer in full flaming freak-out. I’m no longer in the deepest despair of her situation. There is a low murmuring grief that we are here, another year of my mother on the street. Another year of failing to get her housed. A year of acceptance, that I may not be able to help her the way I want to.
Now I have the understanding that not being able to house her is not world-ending. It feels coarse to say so. It goes on and she goes on as I imagine she did when she disappeared for nearly four years. It goes on as it has for many others who live like my mother.
I know that she is better for having her daughter to relate to. When I was reintroduced to her at the beginning of 2016, I cried to see how badly she was doing. Now, she has a happy respite where we eat and chat. She has a physical refutation of her delusions of bad things happening to me. She can see herself that I’m okay when she’s “heard” in her delusions otherwise. That helps.
I no longer feel guilty for accepting things as they are. I accept what is to know how and what I can improve. So things have improved, for her and for me. They are not where I wish they were. I stopped fighting with “the way things are supposed to be.” They are. And I look for a better future in a realistic way.