In the year 2000 I saw a movie with Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton, and Lisa Kutrow called Hanging Up. The movie was promoted as a comedy, but I found it to be dark and depressing. As I watched a story unfold about three sisters who had grown distant, but suddenly find themselves forced to cooperate, as they take on responsibility for their ailing father who is in need of a lifestyle change. However, his resistance to the change, and the sisters attempts to share care giving time, creates another layer of conflict. At the time, I simply could not relate. Today I can.
Taking responsibility for an aging parent is tiring and I feel older than I ever have. It is like having an adult child in my home some of the time and the other times I have an obstinate old woman who is angry with me because her independence has been taken away. Irregardless of what personality emerges from my mother life is challenging.
I have two sisters. One is unable to take care of her and the other openly states that she doesn't want the inconvenience. Over the years, mom has effectively alienated everyone else so I am the only one who will take her. It isn't as though I don't have a choice. I do have a choice. My choice is to do what I feel is the right thing to do and families should take care of each other. This is what differentiates a family member from a relative.
Taking on this responsibility has forced me to sacrifice a large part of my social life and activities that I love. The light at the end of the tunnel is that I realize that it isn't going to be forever. This too shall pass. So, to keep my sanity, each day I try to find moments that delight me. A quiet bus ride to work with a great read, lunch and conversation with a good friend, yoga and meditation, time with my granddaughter, walking my dogs, or making time to sit outside and watch the stars are a few of my delightful moments.
When life is difficult, friendships are tested. It took less than a week to discover the loyalty of a few friends and reaffirm the loyalty of a few others. I can only say that I am blessed with wonderful friends, and this delights me.
The relationship with my mother is a different situation. Since our relationship has always been strained, how she responds to me depends on which side of my mother emerges at that particular moment. When she is fully cognizant I get a person who is stubborn, obstinate, and not very nice. The other mother is a sweet woman. If there is a bright side to this situation I would say that it gives me the chance to see the sweeter side of her.
However, my mother's stubborn streak amuses me. She has memory lapses but refuses to acknowledge that she forgets and she is in denial about her significant hearing loss. It took me two months before I was finally able to convince her that she needs a hearing aid. She kept insisting that hearing aids are for old people. I finallyconvinced her that 86 is old enough to qualify. What closed the deal was telling her that she is giving people an opportunity to talk about her without her knowing. I can hardly wait until she has that little device in her ear. My throat hurts from yelling into her ear so she can hear me. She keeps the television at full volume when she is watching it and then she doesn't understand why no one will watch TV with her. Mom can clear a room just by grabbing the television remote.
Even at full volume, she struggles to hear the television but she will not admit it. A few days ago I came home and asked her what she was watching. "Oh, it is really good mystery." She says. I told her "OK, what is it about?" She replies,"I lost track when you came in" I turned away so she couldn't see me laughing . The program was a news program and it was in Spanish. Today I came home and asked what she was watching. She tells me it is a police program. I smiled as I walked away because she was watching Friday the 13th. However, I can vacuum when my mother is sleeping and she doesn't hear a thing. This does have it's advantages.
Going to the store is an afternoon event. I won't take the risk of putting her in a motorized cart so it takse 20 minutes to walk from the car to the front of the store. She needs a walker but I realize that progress comes one battle at a time.
I know that she needs more care than I can give her but she refuses to admit that she needs a lifestyle change. As I research care giving situations, I am looking for a situation that will help her preserve as much of her independence and dignity as possible, for as long as possible. There is hope because even if she doesn't like me, I learned that she respects me enough to trust me. On the other hand, she also sees me as the obstacle between her ability to drive or live in her home alone. She loves my dogs and my cooking, but not my clothes or my coffee. I learned this because she told me, when she forgot who I was, and thought that she was talking to one of my sisters. That was another one of those delightful moments.
So I am making sacrifices, as much for myself as for her, but I only hope that somewhere inside she will find some good memories of this time with me. Our relationship is still difficult, but maybe in time we can move beyond the tension that we have always had in the past to at least accept each other. If nothing changes then at least I can look myself in the mirror with no regrets and say that I genuinely tried. One of the good things that has emerged from this is that I have once again learned to appreciate the small joys that I had previously taken for granted. This realization, in and of itself, is another delightful moment.
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