After the Fall Comes the Family

Just to be clear: Edna’s not dead yet, I’m simply backtracking so I can catch you up on my internal misery.

So here we are 3 sleepless nights later (between my job, my nerves and my family I just couldn’t sleep) and I’m literally WIDE awake in the middle of the night reading EVERYTHING on the internet about dementia. I even got super excited when I found out my grandma is going to die with the same brain as Estelle Getty AND Rose Parks, it’s morbid but any victory is a victory. I’m learning that there isn’t anything I can do, there’s no cure, essentially there is no hope (cue my political rant about how much money we spend on war, but apparently saving Edna isn’t in the budget). I do my best to make funny jokes, but inside I’m close to hitting up a record store and making tapes for everyone.

Hello. My Name is Ashley Sanders, and this is your tape American Medical Association.

At this time I was working at a radio station (Shoutout to the JVC Crew who were incredibly supportive and still are) AND had a night job at a poorly owned, nepotism based jewelry tv company, opposite of a shout out to a company I refuse to mention because they literally ruined my Thanksgiving (Don’t worry I’ll spill this T later), so on top of my body adjusting to working basically 16 hour days I also got to deal with coming home.

 It seems like I’m complaining, but I’m not I was literally just maxed out emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically.

I think my mother had that good ol’ intuition that got me in a lot of trouble as a child, telling her I was exhausted. After all the saying  goes “You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool mom” (Spanky, The Little Rascals…GOOGLE IT) I can’t tell you how many nights I slept with my light on and door open (FPL you’re welcome) in FEAR that she was gonna stop breathing. There was also this feeling that if I fell asleep, she would die, or if she did die in her sleep and I was sleeping I was an irresponsible murdered. That unwarranted guilt is actually what started this blog, I’ll spill that Tea too but that’s gonna get emotional so I’ll tissues time to go on sale before I tell you.

Once again, I know how dramatic it sounds but keep in mind I’m the same kid who had a panic attack at 9 because I locked myself in the bathroom playing “escape”.  So I’m no stranger to being over dramatic.

I do think you should give me some credit though, up until now the WORST thing that’s happened to me was what the equivalent of someone pissing in my adolescent cheerios. I digress, with my mental state rapidly declining (I guess it really is all about genetics) my mother decided it was time to RALLY THE TROOPS, you know what that means, the Jones family is comin’ to town. THIS. IS. WHERE. THE. FUN. BEGINS. This is where I discover how each one of my aunts copes with losing their mother. This is where support meets fear and these are the moments I have dreaded throughout the entire time. One By one (or two by two depending on how I feel like marching the aunts < fantastic nursery rhyme pun BTW>) I will introduce you to the Jones 7 I’m not going to tell you what order they’re born in, I’ll let you speculate. For now,, I must say goodbye as there is a special lady in need of help opening Listerine.