Making my way back on the plane this weekend to Old Home and The Ranch, I realized that it has almost been a year since things really took a turn for the worst.
Last December was the moment I think my sister and I realized that my mother was really at the point of needing assistance - and my father was too. Two weeks more or less from this writing, my Aunt J - my mother's sister - would pass away as well. And, as my sister pointed, this was almost a year ago that her mother in law passed away as well.
It is remarkable in that is some ways it seems like time has passed very quickly - I literally cannot believe it was only a year. In other ways, it seems like it has been a very long haul.
A legitimate question I asked myself as I was thinking this through was how was I doing with this.
It is hard to explain to someone that has not gone through it. On the one hand, my parents are still as alive as they were a year ago. In that sense I have not "lost" them in sense of death. On other hand, conversations with the parents I grew up with and knew are completely gone. At best at this point their body is there, but their minds not so much.
My sister and I went by for visit yesterday - in a first (for me) I was able to go into the facility and visit them (which was appreciated for the warmth). Both my parents seemed to recognize me (and possibly my sister - we are not sure). I told them about Costa Rica and showed a few pictures, and told them about how everyone was doing at home. My father fell asleep - the nursing assistant mentioned he had a very restless night. My mother of course will listen to conversations but will not really interject anything new so ultimately it became my sister and I talking just about general things. At most, it was a 25 minute visit or so.
I certainly do not mind going to see them, and we have done this long enough now that I have no anticipation of things suddenly changing . It does leave me with a sense of incomplete loss, of something that is gone but not fully: the forest which is half burned but the only part that we can see is the burned part, not the part that still maintains the hope of life
At this point and in some ways, it is hard to think of having a conversation with my mother like I used to as those are almost 6 years or more gone. My father is much more recent; up to a year ago we still were able to talk about this and that. But this and that have disappeared into a mist of history that will never come back now.
Circumstances and the situation have settled, of course: my parents are together in the same facility, and their is (at the moment) no likelihood they will have to be moved. And barring that which we cannot know in terms of happening, things will continue on the gentle slow decline they have endured these last few years.
To be frank, we could use a little gentle decline at the moment as last year's drop off - which started about a year ago - is not what any of us anticipated.
We are facing the first Christmas after losing my wife's father and also the first Christmas of her mother is in an Alzheimer's care facility.
ReplyDeleteIn almost every way, it was easier to deal with death than to deal with the slow erosion of her mother's mind.
Still before us is finishing the task of cleaning out their cluttered home, and eventually selling it.
As you said, we are dealing with feelings of both gone, and not gone, and it's a very odd feeling.
Her mother seems to be adjusting well enough and doesn't remember the difficulties, but we remember and are still struggling to understand, accept, and forgive.
John - That is exactly it - in some ways (as horrible as it sounds), it is easier to deal with death. There is at least as sense of closure, as sad as that seems. Every trip now does not have a sense of foreboding - in a very real sense each trip may very well be the last time I see them, but "them" in a somewhat limited sense.
DeleteI am grateful to hear her mother is adjusting - it was hard for us, made harder by the fact my father had back to back strokes just after moving him. Your family is in my prayers.
Be grateful, TB.
ReplyDeleteBob The Knob's old man went violently senile and the old buzzard clipped him behind the ear with a pipe out in the garage one day. If it hadn't been for Bob's ape-like skull, he probably could have been killed.
My mom has gone bat chit crazy. There is a deliberate, calculated mean streak in her now that just blackens my heart with sinful thoughts. Life changes for everyone when the old ones get caught between realms and for some it is worse than others. You all are doing a very splendid job of handling it. I pray that when my time comes, I can handle it like your folks and not like mine or Bob's.
Keep your chins up over there. You're all doing great.
Glen - I am, believe me. We have acquaintances, co-workers, even friends that have much worse experiences, some of which you describe: abusive, violent, completely leaving the vicinity. In retrospect ours has been "pedestrian", if that word can be used for such an experience.
DeleteI have heard or read that one thing that Alzheimer's and dementia will do (for strokes I have no idea) is to strip the individual of their overlay and leave them with inherently whatever they are - for example my mother, who was always very kind and thoughtful in real life, remains so. I do not wonder that this is true: when we are "fully" ourselves, we can hide or manage parts of ourselves. When the brain starts to shut down, we lose that ability.
Have to agree with above sentiments about perhaps easier dealing with death than a sudden decline. My father was taken out of the blue four years ago and I miss him so deeply but prior to his death you could see the signs of decline creeping in and that was so hard to watch, I wish I'd had a few more years with him but at the same time I would not wish to see him 'fade' away, not one of those black and white things I guess.
ReplyDeleteJohn, the difficulty is that there are no good answers. In a sense, death has a finality that a slow decline does not - but that is it, there is finality. A slow decline has good and bad days - but there are good days as well. Part of it, it seems, is just managing expectations appropriately.
DeleteGod bless you all and give you strength, TB. You all be safe and God bless.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas!
Thank you Linda.
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