Dedicated to the mother of a monster kid "Irene Mezo". She is the lady responsible for my love of monsters, movies and reading. And she encouraged it to the max!
My mom passed away peacefully at 7:00 last night. And even though it sucks that she's gone I am beyond grateful for the fifteen years I was able to help her enjoy them and so many creative friends that she loved keeping up with. Of course I had to do it with my FB newsfeed for her because she hated anything made after 1979 except for the microwave and modern Cable TV.
Bill Lindsey was a phenomenal help in getting my mom home from rehabilitation back when her Vertigo was really bad. And the doctor there wasn't going to let her continue living on her own if she couldn't keep most of her balance when walking or standing.
But Bill would encourage her to work with the physical therapist there to get her strength up and as much of her balance back. And he is a physical therapist himself as well as one of my mom's favorite Metal Singers and Stage performers. And she had the biggest smile on her face when she received an autographed poster from Bill and his band IMPALER for getting back home after rehabilitation. And IMPALER photo Christmas cards too. And Bill was a huge reason that she was able to live independently in her own apartment for three more years before her passing.
You could have seen her Central Jersey Pride glowing from space with every Kevin Smith movie I had taken her to see. Along with showing her his speaking engagements at her apartment. And Ernie O'Donnell and Brian O'Halloran 's projects and appearances (Especially Brutal Massacre). And she was even proud of Jason Mews (Who she knew of as Sonny's nephew) when he directed Madness to The Method.
I know people are confused with how I'm handling Mom's passing, but the reason I'm accepting of it is the fifteen years I was able to share with her. And I was able to keep every single promise I had made to her.
I made sure that she had her legs and her eyes (which was a close call because she was loosing sight in her left eye). And she was able to pass away one of the ways that she hoped to.
My wife and I were supposed to move to Arizona and get into working with production companies in California. And we were going to buy a large Mother-Daughter style house for her and my mother in law to live in. And the whole downstairs would have given them their own bedrooms, bathrooms and TV rooms all they would have to share was the kitchen.
But she didn't want to go because "Her friends were still here, and she was born at home in her parents house in Union Beach, New Jersey and she wanted to die in New Jersey.
At first I was angry with her, but when I found out that she would be needing me to help her out by driving her to doctor visits (because her doctors were telling me her health was getting bad) and caring for her legs when open wounds from her edema (Bayshore Wound Center's Nurses were incredible with teaching me how to treat and dress her wounds to keep her hospital stays to a minimum). And keeping serious infection away because her diabetes would have easily taken her legs.
And caring for her eyes with the help of Dr. Patel in Atlantic Eye in Long Branch and Holmdel New Jersey. He literally gave her sight for six years when she would went blind otherwise without his treatments that I would stop by and do for her at her place before heading off to work.
The only thing I asked of her was to keep track of her meds and her insulin. As long as she did that I would drive her anywhere she needed and do her errands. And she did the whole time.
She felt bad about me giving up a career in California, and I full on admit there was some resentment from me. But thanks to my friend James Harris "Doc Terror" (who's at That Great Monster Convention in The Sky) I decided to push forward with creating The Storage Unit of Terror site. And met a lot of great people that I truly love and grateful to for helping me still have opportunities to work on Indie Horror and Sci - Fi projects the whole time.
And Facebook helped me meet a lot of them. As well as other crazily talented entertainers and artist that my mom loved hearing about when I would show her their updates.
But it wasn't all unicorns and glitter constantly. I found out first hand how much being a caregiver for a loved one can wear you down. It's really hard when you're trying to take care of their needs and your own homelife and work full time at the same time. Then trying to make a little time for yourself with some kind of outside interest on top of it has you spinning a lot of plates.
Then you stop taking care of yourself as much because you're doing all that you can for them. And it really grinds you down mentally and physically. It got so bad that I almost crossed over permanently myself, because of Sepsis due to Cellulitis. But lucked out and only coded for a couple of minutes. The second time cased me to permanently walk with a cane...
But I was able to get myself in check and put everything in perspective. And remind myself that she was the reaon that I love monsters, movies and reading and creating stuff in the first place. And I'm glad that I was given the second chance to do it because her health really started to decline rapidly over the last five months. And I made sure that I improved my health to focus completely on her right up to her passing.
So I'm beyond appreciative that I was able to have done all I could have for her with no regrets.
And I can't thank Cathy and Kathy at Jacqueline M Ryan Home For Funerals for helping me make my mom's final arrangements. They are awesome and felt like close family members getting me through a process that would have left me completely lost.
For you mom...
