Be careful what you ask for in life…the universe hears everything that you say and think and will do it’s best to make it happen good or bad. As a child, I was always conscious of the limitations at home as a result of Mom’s OCD disorder. It was absolutely intolerable because it oozed over onto me and my life during the years that, by right of passage, should have very fond memories. Because of that, I left home when I was 15 to move in with a friend and her father. That being said…

If there is one thing that I have learned along the way, it’s been that life teaches us lessons. All the problems and obstacles that we come across over the years are meant to teach us something. We are here for a reason, we are here to learn. That little voice in our heads, the gut feeling that we all have are there for a reason. If we don’t pay attention, the lesson could be bigger, harder and more painful than we are comfortable with.

Mom in Greenwood Lake at her Aunt Adlaide’s house. Strange seeing her near cows…so unlike her!

Mom’s had OCD since she was a child, with it snow-balling into a huge problem as she got older, until she was almost non-functional in her personal life by the time she was in her 30’s, with it only magnifying as the years went on. During the last year while living in San Diego, well into her eighties, Mom would call me every Sunday, just as her mother would always call her on Sunday to catch up with the week and keep in touch. In one of our conversations, she had told me that her apartment manager had raised the rent again and that she couldn’t afford it anymore, and was unable to find another place in her price range. She was very depressed and not thinking straight. I told her that she could, of course, come and stay with me for awhile and we would try to find her something here in her price range, of course at that time, not knowing that she was moving in the direction of dementia. She told me that she would like that and wished for one thing. She wanted to die, living normally without OCD. I agreed that would be a good thing for the both of us and that for me, it would allow us to mend our fences of the past and be at peace with each other when that time came

I can’t help but think now, that you really need to be careful of what you wish for…meaning, look at my mother. She wished to live without OCD before she dies…she was granted her wish, but not in the way anyone would imagine. She shows no signs of OCD right now because she doesn’t remember that she has it. She’s in brain failure and dementia has destroyed that part of her brain cells and she doesn’t remember having OCD, therefore, granting her wish. How sad that she couldn’t realize in the sunset of her life, that she is not being tortured by a disorder that has virtually destroyed her life, her 2 marriages and effected her only daughter… I guess we have, in some respect, mended our fences, which is comforting. Not in a way we would have chosen, but it’s done. The other irony of this story, is that I have always aspired to be exactly like my grandmother who influenced my life tremendously as I was growing up. In the later years, my grandmother was the caretaker of my grandfather with dementia… Poof…the universe has granted my wish. I am my mother’s caretaker. Life is strange. Be careful what you ask for in life…you never know in what form the universe will grant your wish.

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