IT WOULD HAVE BEEN MY NADA'S 90TH BIRTHDAY TODAY

[Guest guest]

It would have been my nada's 90th birthday today had she made it, but of course

as most of you know she died two weeks ago yesterday.

Things are moving so quickly in my life for the positive and I can't believe it

really.

I feel very blessed and thankful for nada now because I wouldn't be getting my

new house and all the things I've always dreamed of if it weren't for nada. I

know that life isn't all about material things, but having lived without for so

long and struggling - worrying about money all the time and living in very

substandard apartments because I couldn't do better wasn't what I dreamed of for

MY life! Now I will have my dream. I close on my house Tuesday!

I gave nada her 90th birthday a month ago today (March 5th) in a hospice care

center. She was cognizant but terminally ill then of course. She was the old

nada for the most part though with only one major glimpse of the mother I would

have wanted all those years and even in that it was tainted by sadness and not

happy. I would call it bittersweet. Something told me she would not live to see

today and I was right of course and that was when they all had hope she would be

going home and survive! Yes she would probably never walk again - that was a

given but she would live they thought. I worked so hard for her to go home -

all the neighbors who loved nada and were more like family to her and then to me

through what turned out to be her last month of life and continue to help me

down there worked so hard to bring her home. Extraordinary people in that

regard! How many people do you know devote full DAYS to helping a neighbor?!

They all went beyond the call of duty if there is such a thing in an instance

like this to make that possible and later to make it possible for me to sell

nada's house without ten tons of trash inside which I did sell. Initially

because they all loved nada. They saw in nada things I very, very rarely saw

but then again this was I believe the REAL nada - her soul which was pure and

not poisoned by the BPD. Thank her monstrous father for that the bastard! I

hope he's rotting in a black hole someplace. He deserves no better for

incesting her and her younger sister who is also BPD. Anyway I digress.

I have guilt because I couldn't bring that about and nada had always said she

wanted to die at home. I wanted that for her and tried with every core of my

being but the powers that be there blocked me every step of the way and I was

powerless to fight them. So she lingered there the last three weeks between

life and death but again I digress.

I made nada two homemade desserts from scratch (pineapple upside down cake and

Cherry Cream Torte) and brought them from MAINE - a six hour trip down there

without stopping or traffic. I called all the neighbors she loved so much who

loved nada and they all came with stuffed animals, flowers, cards and an

outpouring of love I had never witnessed in my entire life. She was very good

to these neighbors I was told - she never forgot their birthdays - their kids'

birthdays for years - to give them homemade cookies in her earlier years when

she still could for some of them who knew her long enough - to give them flowers

and vegetables from her garden - all this as if they were her family. She was

good to me too in that regard but anyway. I still got the insults when I showed

up right away - the 'you have no makeup on do you?! You look like hell!' I told

her I DID have makeup on and I went over to her bed closer so she could see

(she didn't have her glasses on). She leaned closer and saw that yes I did have

makeup on but of course never said, " I'm sorry " because that was not in nada's

vocabulary so I let it slide. I had a friend bring Chicken Fricasee and I fed

her. She ate eagerly and I was glad. She was so pathetically thin at that

point she was literally skin and bones. I later fed her Cherry Cream Torte and

Pineapple Upside Down Cake (the diabetes be damned - what difference did it

make at that point as long as I could get her to eat?!) She said 'good!' and

all the neighbors there said I could 'bake like my mother'. Of course she

relished that as any BPD would but it didn't matter.

Awhile later she asked my friend Sue who had brought me there each time driving

her own vehicle if the man sitting next to me was my 'boyfriend'. He was her

NEIGHBOR and her GARDENER the last two years of her life! I didn't know this

man before that! We certainly were NOT acting like a couple! I didn't know she

said that until later of course but anyway. She didn't recognize my two friends

Pip and either and they were hurt by it as she had known them as I had

for YEARS but anyway that doesn't matter.

It was to be the last time she would speak to me, but of course I didn't know

that for sure then.

When everyone had gone home and just Sue and I remained, I went over and cried

saying " I'm sorry I could never be the daughter you wanted " - hoping nada would

say " yes you were " but of course that didn't happen. She ignored that. I said

" I love you " - feeling as though it would be the last time perhaps I could say

that and she could respond. She said nothing - just looked at me. I cried

again and said, " say I love you " thinking I shouldn't have had to ask that but

anyway she reluctantly said, " I love you " back but it shouldn't have had to be

forced. That I regret but I'm not her. I didn't think like her and of course

never will. Those are the last words she would ever speak to me.

One neighbor in particular said the last time we went down the weekend before

last for her Memorial Service and burial " She loved you. It was YOUR picture on

her end table next to her chair by her beloved TV and not her husband's. " Yes

that's true. It was mine but it was a pic of a much YOUNGER me when I graduated

from high school and she never was there for that as my father had caught her

cheating on him with her boss and had thrown her out the year before when I was

a Junior two weeks before my 16th birthday. Ancient history now of course but I

had mixed feelings back then. I definitely mourned her more then than I do now

believe it or not. Now I don't at all except in rare moments when something

will trigger it in me, but having mourned my father in 1990 I feel completely

different this time. I was beyond sadness when my father who was also a victim

of nada and wouldn't hurt a fly passed. We had grown close after he threw nada

out but anyway.

So that is my final nada saga.

I will try to help all the rest of you and be there for you the way you have

been for me. God bless us all.