I should be where you are now

[caroljane]

I write this as I think of another OL poster, who is the constant caregiver of a parent.

I don't know you, but I know so many in your same situation. One of my friends has total responsibility for her Alzheimer's-destroyed mother. Many relatives share the care of the elderly-impaired. My own children confer about my deafness, not yet realizing that it is selective.

I always expected to be the caregiver/companion of my mother. It was always the unspoken plan. Barring accidents, when she was 85 and I was 65,I would come and live with her and help her live in her home until she died.

My husband loved this plan and wanted to move there earlier, until I pointed out we could not afford to do that.

It was a great plan, so great that I carry out my part on my own now. I have the conversation with her that we always had, predictable but her always surprising me, understanding each other without agreeing with each other.

I congratulate her that she died in the exact way she wanted to, in mid-sentence and full flow, dressed beautifully and in perfect health and spirits. Surprising everyone, not least herself. She could always take a joke.

In the dark watches of the night, I continue our conversations,which have no beginning and no end and no meaning, except love.

[Selene]

Beautifully expressed...bravo.

[pippi]

Daunce I hope you are writing a book

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Carol,

What a lovely thought at the end.

We can't control that death will happen, but we can control what it means while we are alive.

Not much on the surface, but a lot when you get into it.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I don't know; every day, it seems, Mom is less alive. Petering out mentally and physically is a hard way to watch someone go. She made a truly witty remark a week ago. Never again. She always wants to see her doctor, no matter she saw him two or three days ago. No mention now for three days. She has vascular dementia, not Alzheimer's. Her Mother had had that. There is a clear difference. She is shutting down, closing her doors. It's a grace but terribly painful for me. It's beyond free will. The brain gets less and less blood. I cry writing these words. There was a transition, now complete I fear, from reading to watching TV. Before, she'd bounce back, as from a cold. It might have taken two months as it did a year ago. Now she needs to bounce back again, but there is nothing to bounce back from, except me. I had yelled at her, it was terrible; that's my hope, aside from reducing her medication. Medication can screw you up. I hope and dread her recovery because I'm afraid I'm the only thing there is for her to recover from. I take hope, fuck the dread.

--Brant

edit: Mom's better now

Edited March 19, 2011 by Brant Gaede

[caroljane]

I don't know; every day, it seems, Mom is less alive. Petering out mentally and physically is a hard way to watch someone go. She made a truly witty remark a week ago. Never again. She always wants to see her doctor, no matter she saw him two or three days ago. No mention now for three days. She has vascular dementia, not Alzheimer's. Her Mother had had that. There is a clear difference. She is shutting down, closing her doors. It's a grace but terribly painful for me. It's beyond free will. The brain gets less and less blood. I cry writing these words. There was a transition, now complete I fear, from reading to watching TV. Before, she'd bounce back, as from a cold. It might have taken two months as it did a year ago. Now she needs to bounce back again, but there is nothing to bounce back from, except me. I had yelled at her, it was terrible; that's my hope, aside from reducing her medication. Medication can screw you up. I hope and dread her recovery because I'm afraid I'm the only thing there is for her to recover from. I take hope, fuck the dread.

--Brant

edit: Mom's better now

Brant, once I again I write you unsolicited, to tell you the one thing I know amongst all the things I do not know. I don't know you or your mother or the particulars of her illness, or the price you are both paying for the life she has had or what that life has been. But I know without question what she wants now, whatever is left of her self to want anything.

She wants your survival and your happiness. If that means yelling at her she wants you to yell. If it means falling asleep when you should be watching her, because you desperately need sleep, she wants you to sleep. She wants you to survive her and be happy, and whatever else she has wanted in her life she wants these things the most.

I watched my father and my husband die, and saw them lose everything, their independence and dignity and even in my father's case his mind, when the cancer spread to his brain. I saw them lose everything except their stoic courage and their selves, which are imperishable.

Probably I will be in their place, unless I am lucky like my mother, but I will try to live what I know as best I can. Nobody gets out of here alive, but O how we can live in the meanwhile.

I know you have already given everything she wanted to the mother who will die but never leave you.

Edited March 23, 2011 by daunce lynam

[Dennis Hardin]

I don't know; every day, it seems, Mom is less alive. Petering out mentally and physically is a hard way to watch someone go. She made a truly witty remark a week ago. Never again. She always wants to see her doctor, no matter she saw him two or three days ago. No mention now for three days. She has vascular dementia, not Alzheimer's. Her Mother had had that. There is a clear difference. She is shutting down, closing her doors. It's a grace but terribly painful for me. It's beyond free will. The brain gets less and less blood. I cry writing these words. There was a transition, now complete I fear, from reading to watching TV. Before, she'd bounce back, as from a cold. It might have taken two months as it did a year ago. Now she needs to bounce back again, but there is nothing to bounce back from, except me. I had yelled at her, it was terrible; that's my hope, aside from reducing her medication. Medication can screw you up. I hope and dread her recovery because I'm afraid I'm the only thing there is for her to recover from. I take hope, fuck the dread.

--Brant

edit: Mom's better now

I lived through the same nonstop nightmare, Brant.

Ayn Rand once told Tom Snyder she had no problem with the expression, 'God bless you.'

God bless you.

[BaalChatzaf]

I congratulate her that she died in the exact way she wanted to, in mid-sentence and full flow, dressed beautifully and in perfect health and spirits. Surprising everyone, not least herself. She could always take a joke.

That is how I want to go. In mid-sentence saying something literal minded.

On my stone it will be graven " His last words were "I think I am dy...." "

Thank you for your thoughts.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited March 26, 2011 by BaalChatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

I don't know; every day, it seems, Mom is less alive. Petering out mentally and physically is a hard way to watch someone go. She made a truly witty remark a week ago. Never again. She always wants to see her doctor, no matter she saw him two or three days ago. No mention now for three days. She has vascular dementia, not Alzheimer's. Her Mother had had that. There is a clear difference. She is shutting down, closing her doors. It's a grace but terribly painful for me. It's beyond free will. The brain gets less and less blood. I cry writing these words. There was a transition, now complete I fear, from reading to watching TV. Before, she'd bounce back, as from a cold. It might have taken two months as it did a year ago. Now she needs to bounce back again, but there is nothing to bounce back from, except me. I had yelled at her, it was terrible; that's my hope, aside from reducing her medication. Medication can screw you up. I hope and dread her recovery because I'm afraid I'm the only thing there is for her to recover from. I take hope, fuck the dread.

--Brant

edit: Mom's better now

I lived through the same nonstop nightmare, Brant.

Ayn Rand once told Tom Snyder she had no problem with the expression, 'God bless you.'

God bless you.

Thank you. Mom's a lot better now.

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

I don't know; every day, it seems, Mom is less alive. Petering out mentally and physically is a hard way to watch someone go. She made a truly witty remark a week ago. Never again. She always wants to see her doctor, no matter she saw him two or three days ago. No mention now for three days. She has vascular dementia, not Alzheimer's. Her Mother had had that. There is a clear difference. She is shutting down, closing her doors. It's a grace but terribly painful for me. It's beyond free will. The brain gets less and less blood. I cry writing these words. There was a transition, now complete I fear, from reading to watching TV. Before, she'd bounce back, as from a cold. It might have taken two months as it did a year ago. Now she needs to bounce back again, but there is nothing to bounce back from, except me. I had yelled at her, it was terrible; that's my hope, aside from reducing her medication. Medication can screw you up. I hope and dread her recovery because I'm afraid I'm the only thing there is for her to recover from. I take hope, fuck the dread.

--Brant

edit: Mom's better now

Brant, once I again I write you unsolicited, to tell you the one thing I know amongst all the things I do not know. I don't know you or your mother or the particulars of her illness, or the price you are both paying for the life she has had or what that life has been. But I know without question what she wants now, whatever is left of her self to want anything.

She wants your survival and your happiness. If that means yelling at her she wants you to yell. If it means falling asleep when you should be watching her, because you desperately need sleep, she wants you to sleep. She wants you to survive her and be happy, and whatever else she has wanted in her life she wants these things the most.

I watched my father and my husband die, and saw them lose everything, their independence and dignity and even in my father's case his mind, when the cancer spread to his brain. I saw them lose everything except their stoic courage and their selves, which are imperishable.

Probably I will be in their place, unless I am lucky like my mother, but I will try to live what I know as best I can. Nobody gets out of here alive, but O how we can live in the meanwhile.

I know you have already given everything she wanted to the mother who will die but never leave you.

Thanks Carol. I just saw this.

--Brant

[PDS]

I am reminded of Dylan Thomas when this subject is afoot:

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Daunce: your writing reveals a stirring and unusual sense of life--not just when it is playful but also when it is sad, as here. Thank you for these glimpses.

[Philip Coates]

Lots of eloquent and affecting posts on this thread.

[caroljane]

I congratulate her that she died in the exact way she wanted to, in mid-sentence and full flow, dressed beautifully and in perfect health and spirits. Surprising everyone, not least herself. She could always take a joke.

That is how I want to go. In mid-sentence saying something literal minded.

On my stone it will be graven " His last words were "I think I am dy...." "

Thank you for your thoughts.

Ba'al Chatzaf

QUALITY CUSTOM HEADSTONES

- for the hypochondriac

I TOLD you I was sick

-for the bitterly regretful

I wish I'd spent more time at the office

- for those whom the shroud fits when the bell tolls

Here lies the body of William Jay

who died defending his Right of Way

He was right, dead right, as he sped along,

but he's just as dead as if he was wrong.

Edited March 27, 2011 by daunce lynam

[BaalChatzaf]

Here lies the body of William Jay

who died defending his Right of Way

He was right, dead right, as he sped along,

but he's just as dead as if he was wrong.

My favorite graving on the headstone.

See!!!!! I told you I was sick.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[caroljane]

Here lies the body of William Jay

who died defending his Right of Way

He was right, dead right, as he sped along,

but he's just as dead as if he was wrong.

My favorite graving on the headstone.

See!!!!! I told you I was sick.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Me too. I also like, "So finally you come to visit!"

[studiodekadent]

It seems that this is a relatively common thing amongst OL members.

I'm in a similar boat. The parent in question, whilst incurably ill, is still very much able to take care of themselves in many respects. I'm more about getting food, doing shopping, providing domestic help and mixing cocktails (I make damn good ones too).

But yeah, don't pity me. Most of the people here have it worse than I do, in terms of caretaking.