I have been sitting with my father for 4 months now. I watch the hands move on the clock, I watch numbers change on the calendar letting me know another day has passed. I change the pages on the calendar. It is all very surreal. Like a Dali painting. I know 4 months is a lot. Especially for my family who has not had me there for them like they are used to having me there. But I don't feel the passage of time. I don't feel 4 months. I don't feel anything except sadness. Deep deep aching sadness. Consuming sadness. I can't breathe sadness.
I missed Christmas, New Years, Valentines Day, my daughter's birthday, my wedding anniversary, long weekends, first concert, baseball practices, soccer games, and a day I was supposed to help out in the classroom that my son was looking forward to. Those hurt. I'll never get those back. But I will also never get this time with Dad back either. The choices are hard.
I travel back through time. I remember all the visits he made to me once I moved away. I remember each move I made and that he was always a part of them all. All 14 of them! I remember when he sat with me through a broken leg, respiratory illnesses, and then later Lymes disease. He held my hand and told me to fight. Now I hold his hand and tell him to fight if he wants to or rest if he wants to.
I have done all the things people tell me I need to do. I have given him permission both to fight and not to fight. I have told him I will be alright. I have told him it will be ok. I have told him I will take care of the things he worries about. My biggest fear is that I will have to make "The Decision". You know the one I am talking about. We have had several (3 to be specific) "setbacks". He comes back but never to the level he was before the setback. Each setback is a little more serious. This last one I thought I would have to make "The Decision", but I didn't. I know its coming.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Gotta find the humor
It has been 3 weeks and 2 days that I have been with my father willing him to fight and get better. There are definite stages that you go through in this process and I might write about them at some point but right now I am finally able to see some of the humor so I want to share that with you.
I am sitting in Dad's ICU room. It is a single because it is the smallest room in the ICU and they cannot fit another bed into it. Because he does not have a roommate I can come and go as I please. The first week I obeyed all rules. The second week I tip-toed around a few. Today I have ventured into the "I have been here so long the rules don't apply to me" zone. I have broken my first rule.
You are not allowed to bring food into the ICU. I might be ok with this if there were alternatives but I have decided the hospital cafeteria exists for two reasons. First, to create a fund for medical research. I mean really. Why else would a bottle of water cost $2.50? I can buy a case for the cost of 2 bottles and get change back! The second reason to ensure a steady stream of patients in the immediate (food spoilage creating gastro-intestinal admissions) and long-term (cardio patients due to the high levelof salt and fat).
I am tired of spending money on lousy food so today I packed a lunch and snuck it in. I now sit in my Dad's room, curtain drawn, eating my sandwich. I look up at him laying in bed, I hear the machines, and I suddenly giggle because I realize that I am the poster child for a Greys Anatomy or House episode. How many times have we watched episodes where the interns or House were hiding in a comatose patient's room eating lunch? Whenever I saw these episodes I laughed and thought how silly it was, no one would ever do that. I am eating those words with my turkey sandwich and ruffles potato chips.
I am sitting in Dad's ICU room. It is a single because it is the smallest room in the ICU and they cannot fit another bed into it. Because he does not have a roommate I can come and go as I please. The first week I obeyed all rules. The second week I tip-toed around a few. Today I have ventured into the "I have been here so long the rules don't apply to me" zone. I have broken my first rule.
You are not allowed to bring food into the ICU. I might be ok with this if there were alternatives but I have decided the hospital cafeteria exists for two reasons. First, to create a fund for medical research. I mean really. Why else would a bottle of water cost $2.50? I can buy a case for the cost of 2 bottles and get change back! The second reason to ensure a steady stream of patients in the immediate (food spoilage creating gastro-intestinal admissions) and long-term (cardio patients due to the high levelof salt and fat).
I am tired of spending money on lousy food so today I packed a lunch and snuck it in. I now sit in my Dad's room, curtain drawn, eating my sandwich. I look up at him laying in bed, I hear the machines, and I suddenly giggle because I realize that I am the poster child for a Greys Anatomy or House episode. How many times have we watched episodes where the interns or House were hiding in a comatose patient's room eating lunch? Whenever I saw these episodes I laughed and thought how silly it was, no one would ever do that. I am eating those words with my turkey sandwich and ruffles potato chips.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
The Best So Far
We have moved around a lot. We have been in Iowa since April. It seems like it has all come together her so far. I love my home. It is the best house we have ever had, and we have had a few. It is the right combination of extras but basic. It feels right, it feels like me. So tonight we are snowed in and I am enjoying the winter wonderland from this wonderful home I have. I am very very lucky.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
An Amazing Community of People
I am new to Des Moines, Iowa. I have only lived here since April. But I am periodically stunned by the giving nature of the people here and how they value community.
Sadly the mother of a boy in 3rd grade died unexpectedly this week. My son is in 3rd grade and while the boy is not in his classroom he is in his class. We have talked about the boys' loss and how sad it is and how we need to value every moment. But then the community became involved. To date, this is what they people have done for this family.
Sadly the mother of a boy in 3rd grade died unexpectedly this week. My son is in 3rd grade and while the boy is not in his classroom he is in his class. We have talked about the boys' loss and how sad it is and how we need to value every moment. But then the community became involved. To date, this is what they people have done for this family.
- Gift cards to restaurants, gasoline stations, and airlines to assist in helping with family members who want to visit
- Cleaning company once per week until January
Meals made and delivered every day until January - Someone will care for their pets during the day until school is out in June
- Rotation schedule to take care of the kids in their home after school until school is out in June
And these people have only lived here 3 years!
I am very proud to be a part of this community
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Rumblings and Stirrings
I believe I am on the brink of learning new insights. I have feared writing about them would limit the insight from coming to me. I know that I will have my AHA moment and then will need to share. But I also feel a need to put out there that this is what is going on with me.
I watch my father navigate his acceptance that my mother, his wife, is now in a nursing home and that she will never be the person she was. There are many ways in which this might be considered good. She was a harsh woman her whole life. Her dementia only aggravates this personality characteristic. My father has always been faithful to his vows to her, tho she was not to him.
I watch my father keep his commitment to care for her in sickness and in health and in the beginning of this journey I thought it was firm commitment to always standing by his word that kept him with her. Lord knows I tried to get him to divorce her since I was 14 and he would not. I watched his lonliness and sadness my whole life as these two people who were not meant to stay together did so.
Now as she travels through time in her head I watch him travel with her. There were good times, even though I never saw them. And they are reliving them together. And I am a voyeur. I have seen them kiss for the first time ever. I have heard them say I love you for the first time ever. And I have heard my father whisper to her "come back to me" with a pain you can only know if you have lost someone you love dearly.
He stayed with her because he loves her. I have never known that. I have no idea where this will take me but I know when my AHA comes I will be better for having experienced it.
I watch my father navigate his acceptance that my mother, his wife, is now in a nursing home and that she will never be the person she was. There are many ways in which this might be considered good. She was a harsh woman her whole life. Her dementia only aggravates this personality characteristic. My father has always been faithful to his vows to her, tho she was not to him.
I watch my father keep his commitment to care for her in sickness and in health and in the beginning of this journey I thought it was firm commitment to always standing by his word that kept him with her. Lord knows I tried to get him to divorce her since I was 14 and he would not. I watched his lonliness and sadness my whole life as these two people who were not meant to stay together did so.
Now as she travels through time in her head I watch him travel with her. There were good times, even though I never saw them. And they are reliving them together. And I am a voyeur. I have seen them kiss for the first time ever. I have heard them say I love you for the first time ever. And I have heard my father whisper to her "come back to me" with a pain you can only know if you have lost someone you love dearly.
He stayed with her because he loves her. I have never known that. I have no idea where this will take me but I know when my AHA comes I will be better for having experienced it.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Is acceptance the same as forgiveness?
I am a member of the sandwich generation. I am simultaneously taking care of my children and my parents. It’s hard. To be a member of this club you have to surrender your life long role of being a child. No more regressions to age 12 when you visit family. No more tattling on siblings.
The difficulty increases when you have struggled in your relationship with one of your parents, like I have. I have mother issues. To some extent, we all do so I won’t bore you with the details. If you are reading this and you know me, you have heard it all before.
Two weeks ago I received a document from the nursing home my mother was transferring to at the end of her time in a transitional care unit. It was titled “Life History”. I was to answer the questions asked about my mother’s life history so that the folks working on her unit could come to understand her better. I was stunned that they would think that I could provide them anything worthwhile. I have never understood my mother. How could I possibly have anything that could help them? Trying to be a good daughter and knowing it would gnaw at me until I did it, I opened the document assuming I could wrap this up in 30 minutes.
But Noooooo
It took a week.
Who knew?
Who knew the havoc such simple questions would create?
Who knew the peace such simple questions would bring?
Not me, that’s for sure.
The questions were simple enough that I could not impose my own perspective, emotions, and pain on them. I found myself attacking this task with the energy of writing the biography of someone for an English term paper. I really wanted to get an A.
Place of birth
Date of birth
Siblings (with names and ages)
High School attended
Clubs
Awards
Goals
As I answered these questions I had to retrieve memories of what my mother and grandmother told me about their lives. To be honest, I said I didn’t know a lot of the information, and I truly didn’t. Siblings; my mother is 85 and was the youngest. She is the only living member of her family. Her father died when she was 8. Her favorite brother when she was 12. She experienced loss of her immediate family early in life and it followed her through life. I started to wonder how this affects a person. How does it feel to watch all your family members die? How does it feel to happen periodically througout your life rather than lumped all together in your adulthood? How does it feel to be the only one left behind? Do you feel abandoned?
College
Major
Interests
Profession
Goals
My mother did not go to college so I was able to legitimately pass on this section. But there’s that word again, goals. My mother wanted to go to college but was not able to afford it. Did that create a longing? A desire?
First date
Wedding
Children
My mother lost her second child, a daughter. She died 2 days after she was born. Now the family she created had loss. What does it do to someone to see that type of pattern repeat itself? Does it create fear? Do you distance yourself so that you can shield yourself from pain?
Jobs
Family vacations
Family rituals
Illnesses
Traumatic events
I was able to give more information here. I wrote long paragraphs as if I needed to prove I knew something about this woman that has been at the core of my life for 51 years. I was grateful that “goals” was not in this section. It should have been. I was still struggling with the fact that I did not know what my mother’s goals in life might have been. When I talked about my own goals growing up I was told having goals was a luxury. I felt unheard, ignored, and belittled.
I get it now Mom. I really do.
I can write several pages of how I moved past my feelings of the past and came to realize that she is a person who had experiences, most of which were not good, and they shaped her into the person she is now. I never saw that before. I think you can only see it when you can no longer regress back to being the child. The child inside keeps us from seeing our parents as people. I can now accept all that my mother is and was. I can now accept my mother for who she is without comparing her to what I wanted her to be for me, the child.
But I have one last question. So many people tell me that we need to forgive. I have had a list of things I knew I needed to forgive my mother for. But now, now that the child is gone and there is acceptance, I have no idea what I should forgive her for?
So, my question is this: Is acceptance the same as forgiveness?
The difficulty increases when you have struggled in your relationship with one of your parents, like I have. I have mother issues. To some extent, we all do so I won’t bore you with the details. If you are reading this and you know me, you have heard it all before.
Two weeks ago I received a document from the nursing home my mother was transferring to at the end of her time in a transitional care unit. It was titled “Life History”. I was to answer the questions asked about my mother’s life history so that the folks working on her unit could come to understand her better. I was stunned that they would think that I could provide them anything worthwhile. I have never understood my mother. How could I possibly have anything that could help them? Trying to be a good daughter and knowing it would gnaw at me until I did it, I opened the document assuming I could wrap this up in 30 minutes.
But Noooooo
It took a week.
Who knew?
Who knew the havoc such simple questions would create?
Who knew the peace such simple questions would bring?
Not me, that’s for sure.
The questions were simple enough that I could not impose my own perspective, emotions, and pain on them. I found myself attacking this task with the energy of writing the biography of someone for an English term paper. I really wanted to get an A.
Place of birth
Date of birth
Siblings (with names and ages)
High School attended
Clubs
Awards
Goals
As I answered these questions I had to retrieve memories of what my mother and grandmother told me about their lives. To be honest, I said I didn’t know a lot of the information, and I truly didn’t. Siblings; my mother is 85 and was the youngest. She is the only living member of her family. Her father died when she was 8. Her favorite brother when she was 12. She experienced loss of her immediate family early in life and it followed her through life. I started to wonder how this affects a person. How does it feel to watch all your family members die? How does it feel to happen periodically througout your life rather than lumped all together in your adulthood? How does it feel to be the only one left behind? Do you feel abandoned?
College
Major
Interests
Profession
Goals
My mother did not go to college so I was able to legitimately pass on this section. But there’s that word again, goals. My mother wanted to go to college but was not able to afford it. Did that create a longing? A desire?
First date
Wedding
Children
My mother lost her second child, a daughter. She died 2 days after she was born. Now the family she created had loss. What does it do to someone to see that type of pattern repeat itself? Does it create fear? Do you distance yourself so that you can shield yourself from pain?
Jobs
Family vacations
Family rituals
Illnesses
Traumatic events
I was able to give more information here. I wrote long paragraphs as if I needed to prove I knew something about this woman that has been at the core of my life for 51 years. I was grateful that “goals” was not in this section. It should have been. I was still struggling with the fact that I did not know what my mother’s goals in life might have been. When I talked about my own goals growing up I was told having goals was a luxury. I felt unheard, ignored, and belittled.
I get it now Mom. I really do.
I can write several pages of how I moved past my feelings of the past and came to realize that she is a person who had experiences, most of which were not good, and they shaped her into the person she is now. I never saw that before. I think you can only see it when you can no longer regress back to being the child. The child inside keeps us from seeing our parents as people. I can now accept all that my mother is and was. I can now accept my mother for who she is without comparing her to what I wanted her to be for me, the child.
But I have one last question. So many people tell me that we need to forgive. I have had a list of things I knew I needed to forgive my mother for. But now, now that the child is gone and there is acceptance, I have no idea what I should forgive her for?
So, my question is this: Is acceptance the same as forgiveness?
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