Yesterday, someone told me that I looked and even sounded different.
"Really?" I asked incredulously.
"Yes," my friend replied. "It's like you're lighter. You're facial expression has changed and your voice is bouncier."
I thought about it for a minute. Had I been weighted down by my caregiving duties to the point that it had actually changed me; I who told others that the only way to care for our loved ones was to first care for ourselves; I who spoke publicly about how to nurture ourselves through stress-reducing activities and who fervently reminded others that they should be vigilant about their own mental state, had overlooked mine?
I retreated to my car and took a mental inventory. I felt the same. I was still caring for my mother albeit long distance. I was still running to the nursing home to check on her, to visit, to make sure that the nurses were doing their job. But there was something different. That stress--that ENORMOUS responsibility had been lifted from my shoulders. Over the past few weeks, Skip and I had managed to actually have a couple of date nights and even a spur-of-the-moment drive to get milkshakes. (Something that we considered reckless and wild.)
I love the sense of wild abandon I feel when I announce, "I'm going to run an errand." I don't have to check if it is okay with Skip that he has to stop doing whatever it is that he is doing to go into the family room and sit with Mom. Suddenly those little things, the things we used to take for granted, the simple freedoms we had lost during the four years we cared for my mother in our home, are restored but now with a new-found appreciation. Can I go to the grocery store? Yes...YES I CAN! Can I sleep until 9 AM? Yes. Can I be gone until after dinner without worrying about a schedule or food preparation? Yes. YES. YES!!!
Before you think me too jubilant, let me hastily remind the reader that my heart is still heavy as I worry about my mother every day when I awaken and before I fall asleep. Being the control fanatic that I am it is extremely difficult to face the fact the my mother's well-being is in the hands of others now. I dread each phone call hoping and praying that it isn't a nurse calling to tell me that my mother has fallen, is injured, isn't eating, has misbehaved, is sick, or has gone missing.
I think about my visits to see my mother. I am frightened. Old memories flood into my consciousness...childhood memories of visiting my grandmother in that horrible nursing home. I was so fearful of the old people. They reached out to me and touched me as I walked by--the wordless, wrinkled, wild-eyed or zombie-eyed strangers who followed me down the halls. Here too they sit in the halls and await my approach. I avert my eyes when I walk into the building to see Mom, careful not to look into the blank and vacant faces of other patients. I find my mother slumped on a bench and for a moment I only see a frail and tiny woman with deep wrinkles and wild hair. When I touch her shoulder she opens her eyes and smiles the smile she reserves for strangers. There is no recognition and my heart shatters into a million pieces.
I notice that her cheeks are sunken and her toothpick ankles do not look like they could support her. It has only been a few days! How could she have changed so much?! Perhaps I didn't notice before.Suddenly I reach out to her wanting to hold this nearly helpless human and to protect her, to love her, to care for her. I forget my fears as I stroke her head, her back and her arms.
Mom has three months to go before she is 100 years old. I never thought that she would make it to 100 but now I am cheering for her. "Please dear God, let her remain healthy and safe," I beseech. Why do I pray for this milestone when just a few weeks ago I cried and carried on that this was no way to live, that she wouldn't have wanted to be this way? Before...just a few weeks ago I cried over the unruly appearance, the lack of grooming. Now, I am amused by clothes that the nurses dress her in. They are clothes that don't belong to her. I resign myself to the fact that she is wearing someone else's socks, that her hair is uncombed and that she shuffles around like all of the residents. Still, I sadden over her purple mottled skin that tells me her heart isn't pumping strongly enough to oxygenate her extremities. I worry over each bruise. I fret over her weight loss. "It's out of my control," I remind myself. Can others do it better (this caregiving) than I?
Another few days go by. I visit with heart in mouth until I see her sitting alone on a bench...the oldest resident, the ancient wizened face looks up and smiles that same sweet smile she has always smiled from the time I was too young to remember. Only now it is not about anything in particular and maybe everything at once. Maybe it isn't so bad after all. Maybe she is okay.
I watch two old ladies follow each other from room to room weaving their way in and out of the doorways like a two-car choo-choo train. They shuffle mindlessly nearly colliding with the man who comes out of one room and enters another. There is perpetual motion and the nurses follow along guiding the patients out of the rooms. "No Miss Emma, this isn't your room. Mr. Smith, let's go this way," they patiently shift their trajectory to another doorway. I watch and observe them stopped at a wall like the battery-operated robot toys that move until there is an obstruction. They bump into it over and over until the nurse turns them once again. I am fascinated by this and watch with a kind of sick curiosity no longer experiencing the shock (and yes, even a little revulsion). I begin to find the humor in this. I refer to this sad drama in more comforting terms and laugh at the antics. One patient wanders from room to room picking up others' personal items and leaving them in other rooms. It is now clear to me why my mother is now sitting in a garish pair of fuchsia and orange pants with yellow striped socks and a blue top none of which belong to her. They were in her room and so they become hers for the moment. They were gifts from the shufflers, the choo-choo trains, the wanderers, the hunters and gatherers.
As I sit with Mom who is silent but awake on her bench, a man walks up to her and she looks at him smiling coquettishly. He touches her knee and she signals for him to draw nearer. The nurse tells me that she is going to kiss him if he comes closer. He makes no move but then as I get up to leave, he quickly grabs my seat next to her and as I turn to say goodbye I see the two of them smiling at each other. They are perhaps joined in their silence and somehow content with each other's company. My need and desire for control evaporates in a bittersweet moment as the door closes and locks behind me. My mother is safe for now. She is cared for. I am free to go home and make dinner for my waiting husband who deserves my full attention and an unburdened evening.
There is some sort of comfort in all of this. My sadness is healthy. There is symmetry in my emotions. Obligation, stress, discomfort, worry are balanced with a sense of letting go, of relief, and a rediscovery of who I was before I was a caregiver. I see that this is the circle of life--my circle of life and I revel in my recovery.
