Sunday, December 11, 2005
Today Mr. Everything worked a morning session for us.
I spent a fair amount of time outside with him going over the yard, discussing needs and plans, and talking about some inside maintenance as well. After a Costco run while awaiting the running out of Mom's requested extra half hour of sleep, I was back out in the yard talking with him. Somehow one of us broached the subject of Mom and how she is doing. He's been involved in elder care professionally (interesting that he no longer does this) thus he likes to keep abreast of Mom's life. Today I treated him to a running commentary, while he worked, about what conditions have developed in her elderly body, how we're handling them, talked some about the improvement in her health and the evening out of her life since a year ago September. He and I compared notes on the possibility of trauma, as his wife has an uncle in his 70s who was a robust hiker until he fell during a particularly strenuous hike, broke his hip, and has "declined" since. This is my major fear, I explained, and also why I keep very close tabs on her, practically following her around with my nose up her ass, as she isn't as spry on her feet as she used to be. After this I automatically repeated what I've been thinking since some time before her 88th birthday, that I expect her to live into her 90s and her doctor, too, wouldn't be surprised if she did. Although I thought I'd believed this before this morning, suddenly it hit me, while talking to Mr. Everything, that I am, as of today, absolutely certain that there is no reason for her not to live into her 90s.
It's curious, really. I had no idea that I'd been voicing this as a hope rather than a belief. I think, sometimes, one has to see one's words hanging in the air between oneself and a listener before being able to evaluate them for veracity. I am relieved to note that this hope of mine is now a belief. As such, I think it will have a subtle impact on my mother's plans for her life span, as well. She is, at this point, absolutely capable of at least two more years. When I think about it, she may very well be capable of a couple more beyond that.
I'm never sure what keeps her going. Tonight, though, I got a clue. Soon after she retired I heard her sneezing and, as is my habit if I hear any sound coming from her bedroom, I checked on her to see if she was okay. She was still awake but said the only thing keeping her awake was her runny nose. My nose has been running all day, too. Today was unusually warm once it got going, I had more windows and doors open than lately usual and Mr. Everything brought a manual lawn mower over to cut down dead weeds and gather them into piles for our compost bins. I think the stirring up of ready-to-fly pollen and seeds and it's distribution into our house through the open doors and windows is probably bothering both of our sinuses. As well, I noticed on my trip to Costco and back that some indigenous plants which normally, by now, would have died down are sprouting as though spring was coming on. The weather has been unusually warm and dry for this time of year. Maybe the plants are being tricked into thinking it's spring, I don't know. But even some of the weeds in our yard are trying for one more run before the freezing nights tuck them in. Anyway, she and I talked about this, in the dark in her bedroom while she snuggled into her covers. While I was there she sighed and closed her eyes, as though signaling me that she was ready to drop into dreamland. As I headed back down the hall into the living room I realized that one of the factors in her absence of reasons to leave her life is that someone is here, someone intimately familiar with her, who not only keeps a close eye on her but responds to almost every sound she makes, regardless of when she makes it, is vitally interested in every detail of her life and keeps her wrapped in a vital human connection.
I was immediately reminded of an article I read some months ago in an issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine entitled: Will We Ever Arrive at the Good Death? In the article one particular woman is followed. At a certain point in her story her family determines that it is necessary to place her in a nursing home. One of their reasons for doing so is their feeling that the stress of taking care of her would lessen their ability to enjoy her and she them when they were together. This particular section of the article has been haunting me, mostly subliminally, since my first reading of it but I haven't taken the time to pull it forward and figure out why. Finally, tonight, it hit me: Although you may think that you and your loved one are enjoying each other when you indulge in short visits and leave the caregiving up to professionals, the truth is that without the detail of daily caregiving, including the "stressful" caregiving situations, you lose out on the intimacy that brings vitality to human connection. Thus, "enjoyable visits" devolve into situations rather like being an acquaintance at someone else's birthday party: Yes, they're fun, yes, everyone is pleased, yes, your literal presence brings with it a gift to the birthday person and yes, the gift is appreciated, especially if you took some care in selecting it. But the party has done nothing to strengthen or deepen your connection to the celebrated one. Once the party's over you remain as much of a mystery to the celebrated as the celebrated is to you. Your presence probably has not contributed much of anything that is more than fleeting to the celebrated person's life.
If you want to "enjoy" someone, you've got to be there through the parties and the perplexities. You've got to join hands with them during the difficult as well as the easy times. When this happens, the smiles you exchange will no longer be polite and perfunctory, they will be spontaneous expressions of the vibrating connection that indicates you have a hand in someone's will to live and they have a hand in yours. There are few things more important or precious than knowing that someone wants to wake up another day because you will be there when they open their eyes; and wanting to awaken in order to interpret the look in their eyes when they awaken.
Yes, caregiving involves stress, sometimes insane quantities of it that isn't easily handled and that cause us who care for people with intense needs to stumble as we reach out for our care recipients. Passing that stress off onto professionals, though, means that we also pass off the possibility of deep communion that two people enjoy only when they've been through hell and high water together and have managed to find periods of respite together on a serendipitous patch of cool, dry land.
Yes, caregiving for an intense needs person is consuming. This is also, though, what makes it an intimate, transformative experience. Refuse the maze of caregiving if you feel you must but keep in mind that if you do you are also refusing much of the amazement.
There are some glitches in my networking project that I'm having to iron out. Finding periods long enough for the uninterrupted concentration needed has been hard these last few days, so other activities, including up-to-the-minute reporting here, continue to fall by the wayside. I am keeping up with an occasional lag of only a day here and there over at The Dailies. If you can't find a report over here, check over there.
Later.
It's curious, really. I had no idea that I'd been voicing this as a hope rather than a belief. I think, sometimes, one has to see one's words hanging in the air between oneself and a listener before being able to evaluate them for veracity. I am relieved to note that this hope of mine is now a belief. As such, I think it will have a subtle impact on my mother's plans for her life span, as well. She is, at this point, absolutely capable of at least two more years. When I think about it, she may very well be capable of a couple more beyond that.
I'm never sure what keeps her going. Tonight, though, I got a clue. Soon after she retired I heard her sneezing and, as is my habit if I hear any sound coming from her bedroom, I checked on her to see if she was okay. She was still awake but said the only thing keeping her awake was her runny nose. My nose has been running all day, too. Today was unusually warm once it got going, I had more windows and doors open than lately usual and Mr. Everything brought a manual lawn mower over to cut down dead weeds and gather them into piles for our compost bins. I think the stirring up of ready-to-fly pollen and seeds and it's distribution into our house through the open doors and windows is probably bothering both of our sinuses. As well, I noticed on my trip to Costco and back that some indigenous plants which normally, by now, would have died down are sprouting as though spring was coming on. The weather has been unusually warm and dry for this time of year. Maybe the plants are being tricked into thinking it's spring, I don't know. But even some of the weeds in our yard are trying for one more run before the freezing nights tuck them in. Anyway, she and I talked about this, in the dark in her bedroom while she snuggled into her covers. While I was there she sighed and closed her eyes, as though signaling me that she was ready to drop into dreamland. As I headed back down the hall into the living room I realized that one of the factors in her absence of reasons to leave her life is that someone is here, someone intimately familiar with her, who not only keeps a close eye on her but responds to almost every sound she makes, regardless of when she makes it, is vitally interested in every detail of her life and keeps her wrapped in a vital human connection.
I was immediately reminded of an article I read some months ago in an issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine entitled: Will We Ever Arrive at the Good Death? In the article one particular woman is followed. At a certain point in her story her family determines that it is necessary to place her in a nursing home. One of their reasons for doing so is their feeling that the stress of taking care of her would lessen their ability to enjoy her and she them when they were together. This particular section of the article has been haunting me, mostly subliminally, since my first reading of it but I haven't taken the time to pull it forward and figure out why. Finally, tonight, it hit me: Although you may think that you and your loved one are enjoying each other when you indulge in short visits and leave the caregiving up to professionals, the truth is that without the detail of daily caregiving, including the "stressful" caregiving situations, you lose out on the intimacy that brings vitality to human connection. Thus, "enjoyable visits" devolve into situations rather like being an acquaintance at someone else's birthday party: Yes, they're fun, yes, everyone is pleased, yes, your literal presence brings with it a gift to the birthday person and yes, the gift is appreciated, especially if you took some care in selecting it. But the party has done nothing to strengthen or deepen your connection to the celebrated one. Once the party's over you remain as much of a mystery to the celebrated as the celebrated is to you. Your presence probably has not contributed much of anything that is more than fleeting to the celebrated person's life.
If you want to "enjoy" someone, you've got to be there through the parties and the perplexities. You've got to join hands with them during the difficult as well as the easy times. When this happens, the smiles you exchange will no longer be polite and perfunctory, they will be spontaneous expressions of the vibrating connection that indicates you have a hand in someone's will to live and they have a hand in yours. There are few things more important or precious than knowing that someone wants to wake up another day because you will be there when they open their eyes; and wanting to awaken in order to interpret the look in their eyes when they awaken.
Yes, caregiving involves stress, sometimes insane quantities of it that isn't easily handled and that cause us who care for people with intense needs to stumble as we reach out for our care recipients. Passing that stress off onto professionals, though, means that we also pass off the possibility of deep communion that two people enjoy only when they've been through hell and high water together and have managed to find periods of respite together on a serendipitous patch of cool, dry land.
Yes, caregiving for an intense needs person is consuming. This is also, though, what makes it an intimate, transformative experience. Refuse the maze of caregiving if you feel you must but keep in mind that if you do you are also refusing much of the amazement.
There are some glitches in my networking project that I'm having to iron out. Finding periods long enough for the uninterrupted concentration needed has been hard these last few days, so other activities, including up-to-the-minute reporting here, continue to fall by the wayside. I am keeping up with an occasional lag of only a day here and there over at The Dailies. If you can't find a report over here, check over there.
Later.
