I Love My Mom....She has been there for me when no one else has, she has seen the good inside of me when I lash out an evil tongue, she is my best friend. She is a woman. Strong, demure, kind and full of inspiration. She is a survivor, a fighter and readily admits herself that she too has demons that she attempts to conquer everyday.
Yesterday, we had lunch together. Which doesn't get to happen all that often anymore. We do speak on the phone everyday..but finding time in both of our lives to actually sit down face to face, except for holidays, has become rare. My mom works 13 hours everyday as a Hospice nurse. She receives one weekend off a month. So her work is basically her life. She chooses to do this. To help the sick and the dying. I remember times when a family phoned her at 3am and she got out of her bed and drove to their house to help the family grieve through the passing of their loved one...sometimes she has been there the exact moment they passed....I think there is NO GREATER GIFT in this world than being chosen to comfort and be there for someone as they are leaving this world and entering into another.
When I met my mom for lunch yesterday....she looked at me and instantly became worried. For the first time she actually noticed the weight I have lost. She asked "Are you eating?" "Are you ill?"....and then she asked something that totally threw me for a loop....she said "You're not eating and then throwing up are you?" I was abit taken a back, but could honestly answer "No" to her question. "What makes you ask that mom?"...her answer..." Because I did that whole throwing up thing for so many years, that I don't wish it on anyone."
You see...my mom is/was bulimic. I say that is/was because in truth she says the urge to purge never goes away. Once a bulimis always a bulimic. I remember as a teenager, hearing my mother in the bathroom vomiting after dinner. She blamed it on an upset stomach, or her gallbladder...but now she admits that she had a problem. Shocking to me. I never thought for a moment back then that my mother had a problem. Like many others kids, we think our parents dont have issues, have problems, addictions or diseases...they are invinscible, strong. It amazes me how something so vital as food...something every human NEEDS to survive can also be one of life's most harmful of things. Damaging in the sense it can make not only makes one healthy...but also kill's. Food can become not only a life line...but an enemy.
Because of bulimia, my mother now suffers from Diabetes, hypertension, had to have her gall bladder removed, have her teeth fixed and has gastric ulcers in her stomach....still she moves on.
I am still an addict if i think about it. No longer to drugs, but to food. I am compulsive to it, I am impulsive FOR it. Eating is a pleasure for me....when the pounds add on the world then views it as a GUILTY pleasure. Instead of people taking the time and getting to know a person, they usually judge an individual on their body size and pass them by. Sad really.
My mother admits that her bulimia was media induced. Women on fashion magazines. On television. Women will dye their hair to copy them, women will cut their hair to accent that obsession. Women will also starve themselves to BE THEM, sadly, they die while the celebrity merely fades away from the spotlight....something to think about.