Okay so I had an email today from someone thinking that my last blog was discouraging nursing homes and assisted living places. That could not be farther from the truth and anyone that says anything to me about having Mom live here will also say I say that as much as I think having a parent with you is great, I do not question the decision to use a facility. I believe we all do the best we can based on the information and resources we have at the time and if you have to work or want to have a career, that is what you do. I do not so I choose this path but if this situation became more than I could handle Mom would go to a NH. With that said, this blog is my story, my journey, it is not a "how to" or a "you should", etc.
In the Fall of 2010 Mom was in the nursing home in Matador and my brother was moving to take a job. I had been staying in Roaring Springs to be close to Mom but it was not feasible anymore. That would leave Mom out there with none of us close by and I struggled with that. It was about that time there was a program about "The Disposable Generation" on TV and at that point Louis and I knew we had to try to move Mom to a place closer to us so that I could visit regularly ... I mean it was the right thing to do and I was a dutiful daughter.
So we moved her. I sure did not like doing that visiting thing much, it was boring, I had a million other things to do, she did not know me, she seemed to not care that I was there, and really maybe it seemed like kind of a waste of time. But as time went on I began to realize how my brother Julian was right. When she stayed with him in Roaring Springs he so wanted people to make more of an effort to come see Mom. He would say that it does not seem like it when you only see her for an hour or two once in a while, but that there is so much more to Mom than we gave her credit for. I am not sure how I really felt about his analysis of Mom but I did know that she did not seem to know me when I went to RS, although she did seem glad to see me, she did not talk much. I never felt like it mattered that I was there and Julian would say, "No, she likes having company". I just thought he was bound and determined to make her something she was not.
So now that Mom and I have gotten so close, I ache some for Julian because now I know how he must have felt, how frustrating it was to try to make people believe more in Mom ... to believe that it is not about us but about our Mom. Yes sometimes it is uncomfortable and it may not fit into our schedules but really ... who is this about ... It is about Mom. And I guarantee you my Mom has more going on behind those eyes than you may think. Julian was right!
So in my last blog, the first paragraph represents me before I understood the elderly, and more importantly my Mom, and the second paragraph is me becoming more enlightened to the elderly, and more importantly my Mom. If you take anything away from it, learn from it, have a light bulb moment, that is great but if not that is okay, it is my journey so most certainly do not be offended.
Lovely story and ones inner thoughts regarding their mom. I, agree with your brother as I was a child that traveled the journey of Alzheimer's with my mom too. To me it appeared I was pleading numerous times throughout her journey for her family to come visit her. They didn't experience or see what I saw regarding her because I was her care giver twenty four seven for two years and what appeared to me as lack of love and respect for another hurt me deeply and made me so angry because this was a life, a human life that God molded with clay, God created, a child of God and she deserved so much more from others because of these facts. I hurt for my Mother! No, perhaps there were days that others thought that indeed they were wasting a few hours of their personal days, personal lives due to mom being so weak that she didn't converse with them, perhaps the entire visit she was sleeping the entire time but still her heart was beating, she was life, she had a soul, and she was a child of God so in her own world she continued to know and feel through the organ we all know as...the heart. Thank you for sharing two personal feelings, emotions that once again stem from..the heart.
ReplyDelete