I'm becoming more convinced that life and death are the same. States of being. Just me perhaps. Not profound. But more true in my experiential understanding. I can only say to all who're grieving or in pre-grief (is that a thing at all?, don't know what to call it), that there's internalized little bits of understanding and knowledge, little bits of the person's rubbing off on you, that you carry forever within you. I don't realize it all the time, but I catch myself thinking in ways I know my father gave me. So I cry a little. And then get my beer stein out, and drink another pint of tea. Which - oh my God! - my sister pointed out that my father did this - drank tea from a beer stein. I hadn't remembered this until she pointed it out on a vid call, watching me incredulous. Thankfully I have not picked up his other practice - pouring tea from his stein onto his breakfast porridge.
I have a question. Is there anything I need to do / say / think about, which, if i don't do / say / think about I will regret after Dad's gone?
I have always had a good, uncomplicated relationship with Dad. I couldn't have wished for a better father. He taught me to ride a bike and, until I left home, we often went for bike runs together. He took me hill-walking; I bagged my first Munro with him.
For as far back as I can remember, Dad's engineering job was primarily office based, but he used to be called out in the worst of weather; occasionally fighting through blizzards in the middle of the night, and so I always thought of Dad as heroic. Plus the work radio in the car always seemed a bit glamourous, with the call-signs and the jargon.
We've always talked. He's always been a supportive and proud father, and grandfather. Obviously we've had spats, but we were always able to sort out our differences. We don't agree politically, but can co-exist.
Dad had an unhappy experience of church growing up - nothing dramatic but he grew up in a small town where it would have been social and career suicide for my grandparents not to have gone to church, and they spent years attending a church where they had no liking or respect for the minister. Dad describes himself as agnostic, and doesn't like organised religion, whereas I am very involved with the church, but again, we co-exist happily. We've always respected the others viewpoint.
Dad is currently saying that he's had a great life, he's proud of his career and his family, that his only regret is that he'll be leaving Mum, but he knows that my brother and I will take care of her, and that he is ready to go.
My brain is churning over that there must be something I'm missing, something I need to say, or do, or ask, but I just can't think of anything. We've always told each other that we love each other and, pre-Covid we always hugged whenever we saw each other.
What am I missing?
It's very likely you've caught everything. I did, with my sister. It's not true that there's ALWAYS something you forget. (My mother kept telling me so, and I'm two years' out from my sister's death and still perfectly okay with how we parted.)
I'm going to strongly suggest you get video/audio of him while you can, as you'll miss that voice. Make some of it completely non-emotional--not just "I love you" but also "Pass the damn eggs, would you?" so you can listen to it without completely breaking down. You might see also if you can get something that strongly reminds you of his smell--a bathrobe or something, his cologne or aftershave.... Your Mom might be better placed to help with this.
If there's any family history, genealogy, "Who exactly IS so-and-so to us?" or skeletons you need to get caught up on, now's the time.
Ditto the extremely mundane but necessary passwords, safe keys, and where'd-you-put-the-title-papers discussions.
Other than that, just spend as much time as you can, in as unflurried a mindset as you can manage. I spent hours sitting on my sister's bed, holding her hand while she slept. I don't regret a moment of it.
ETA: In re COVID, there will come a point where avoiding hugs etc. is a waste of time, medically speaking. My sister took risks she shouldn't have, but during the last few days of her life, who cared? It wasn't going to change anything at that point. (Well, there was someone who cared, but it was more that person's own style of handling stress, to fuss over things that didn't matter anymore, and nothing to do with any real danger.)
@North East Quine , your father sounds a lovely man and I envy the relationship the two of you have My father tried to initiate a lot of conversations about his likelihood of dying sooner rather than later and I'm afraid I tended to change the subject. I got married a month before he died, and at the reception he told me he didn't want a funeral like my (Catholic) wedding I wish I'd talked to him about what he did want there and then. Our relationship was never very easy, as I think we were too much alike.
It's when I hear old blues songs with double entendre lyrics I miss him the most, as I know how much he'd love me sharing them with him.
@North East Quine your ode to your father is beautiful. Thank you for sharing it with us, and I hope are able to share it with him.
Reading that underlined to me how far from that I am with my mother, whose death is not as imminent, but is nonetheless predictable within the next five years or so - not nearly as long as it sounds.
Fundamentally, I'm not sure we have ever REALLY connected, from my birth onwards (I was premature, and in an incubator for 28 days having been apparently fine at birth). I'm really not sure she ever got over the shock, or trusted herself to care for me.
This manifested itself in many ways over the years, but most strongly in crippling (for her) and suffocating (for me) guilt. She was also ill for much of my childhood - with depression and undiagnosed coeliac disease - so I was always afraid, for as long as I can remember, of being too much for her.
She gave the best of herself to her pupils. I saw this accidentally once by taking her lunch to her when she had forgotten it. I was back living with my parents at the time, having graduated in the middle of a recession. On seeing who it was she deflated by about 90% to talk to me, and then resumed full stature the moment she turned away.
Throughout my adult life, we have tried to connect but only fitfully succeeded. Now I'm not sure we ever will, as the trauma of cancer treatment seems to have shrunk her personality and withered it. I am still hopeful for at least a partial recovery, but feel that deep connection will always, in this life at least, something we both long for but we don't achieve. Coming to terms with this fact is not without its difficulites.
Thank you all. I've been sleeping very badly, not because I've been distressed but because my brain seemed to be churning the question "what am I overlooking?" over and over. And I've been puzzled because I haven't been upset. @NOprophet_NØprofit 's expression "pre-grief" gave me a name for the "not-upset."
Last night I finally slept - 10 hours! -and I think it's because this thread let me articulate what was whirring round my brain.
@Sarasa my father and I have previously argued about his wishes for a funeral - he wanted an extremely minimalist funeral, which I thought wouldn't be fair on Mum. But now, with Covid, it looks like he'll be getting exactly the funeral he wanted.
@ThunderBunk my relationship with my mother is far less straightforward!
My own thoughts on the subject relate not to an aging parent, but to David. As there was a gap of only nine days between his diagnosis with cancer and his death (and for four of those days he was sedated), I didn't have a chance to ask him things like what he wanted for his funeral, and had to rely on chance things that he'd said during his life, plus things that I'd have wanted (and I have to say, the choir in Fredericton really pushed the boat out).
I regret the fact that his last waking memory of me was that he thought I was pushing on his nose when I kissed him good luck before he went in for the second operation - but it was actually the breathing tube thingy, which he hated.
I think you are doing everything you reasonably can for your father. There’s bound to be something you regret, but possibly something impossible; I wish my dad had still been alive by the time my daughter went to university, as she’s getting surprisingly like him in odd ways and I think they would have got on well.
I’m sure it will be difficult coping with your mum over the next few months, especially as she doesn’t react to events as you do, or as you’d want her to do. I don’t have any good advice there but hope somebody else does?
My Dad loved classical music and when he was on his deathbed my oldest brother brought in his CDs and player because hearing is reputedly the last sense to go. He registered disapproval when my sister-in-law interrupted a track.
Any Oz shipmates who can provide any advice about going into residential care? Mum happy to be there on a post hospital convalescent visit and would like to stay. I think we could probably have her reassessed as she is finding looking after herself too difficult.
We will have to sell her unit in a retirement village and I'm really confused about the lump sum payment we are expected to make up front if we arrange for her to remain there. She's a DVA war widow pensioner and only has the unit at the village as her main asset. Any advice/experience welcome.
I'm not sure just where you're living now, but if you're in NSW and near a legal aid office, you (strictly speaking your mother) should be able to get quite a bit of advice there as a DVA pensioner. You'll need to take proof of her pension with you, and probably make an appointment. If you have any trouble, the DVA used have social workers and others to advise and assist also. Sorry, but I don't know the present details. My father had a DVA pension and we got quite a bit of help when we were making arrangements for him a dozen or so years ago.
My sons (18 and 23) thought they had to worry about an aging parent this week. On Wednesday morning, after a week of blurred vision, I went to an optometrist. Three hours later I was at an opthamologist who diagnosed a detached retina. We drove home only to immediately receive a phone message (3:30) that we had to drive to Halifax 4 hours away to meet with a surgeon the next morning. Our sons were a bit freaked out when my wife and I rapidly prepared to leave within the hour. After effective urgent surgery on Friday, they now have an aging parent who cannot see out of his left eye for the next 6-8 weeks as the bubble in his eye dissolves. I never thought I would be an aging parent at 56.
I feel for you both. Eyesight and things done to eyeballs are trouble in my books. I had a condition which required an injection directly into my eyeball, a rather intimating experience. The retina remained where it belongs like a dimple in the middle of a beach ball inflated to double size of a normal eye. (I sweated out my shirt, thankfully other bodily functions remained in my voluntary control)
My daughter went to get car to drive me home. I was to meet her at door of hospital. Because of the drops and thus troubles with both eyes, plus light shield (strip of sunglass lense which clamps to temples) I ended up hopelessly lost in the basement of the hospital. I had a cell phone, but running the darn thing is beyond me if I can't see it. And what would I say anyway? "I'm somewhere in the hospital, not where I would like to be....". A kind cleaning person got me safely out to the car. I was less than 50 years old at the time.
I've had people prodding round my eyes all my life (congenital cataracts), so I have evety sympathy. @Caissa, hope your eye starts to behave very soon!
I'm not sure just where you're living now, but if you're in NSW and near a legal aid office, you (strictly speaking your mother) should be able to get quite a bit of advice there as a DVA pensioner. You'll need to take proof of her pension with you, and probably make an appointment. If you have any trouble, the DVA used have social workers and others to advise and assist also. Sorry, but I don't know the present details. My father had a DVA pension and we got quite a bit of help when we were making arrangements for him a dozen or so years ago.
My sons (18 and 23) thought they had to worry about an aging parent this week. On Wednesday morning, after a week of blurred vision, I went to an optometrist. Three hours later I was at an opthamologist who diagnosed a detached retina. We drove home only to immediately receive a phone message (3:30) that we had to drive to Halifax 4 hours away to meet with a surgeon the next morning. Our sons were a bit freaked out when my wife and I rapidly prepared to leave within the hour. After effective urgent surgery on Friday, they now have an aging parent who cannot see out of his left eye for the next 6-8 weeks as the bubble in his eye dissolves. I never thought I would be an aging parent at 56.
Caissa, the same happened to my brother, but he was slightly younger - 53. For some reason the fact that my brother had a detached retina prior to the age of 60* had to be added to my optometrist's notes, as apparently it increases the chances of the same thing happening to me.
As my brother has my mother's brown eyes, and I have my father's blue eyes, I'm hoping that our eye-genetics are totally different!
*I think it was 60 - or maybe 55? - at any rate he was under the relevant age.
One of my daughters had two detached retinas a few years apart when she was in her forties. The doctor said this was far more common in people who are severely nearsighted at an early age.
I am in awe of my parents. Sunday's task was for Dad to teach Mum how to change the time on the cooker clock / car clock etc, etc. This has always been one of his jobs, but Mum is learning so that she can do it herself when the clocks go forward in Spring.
Fortunately Dad is still "well." You would never guess the prognosis by looking at him, he looks completely healthy.
I am in awe of my parents. Sunday's task was for Dad to teach Mum how to change the time on the cooker clock / car clock etc, etc. This has always been one of his jobs, but Mum is learning so that she can do it herself when the clocks go forward in Spring.
Fortunately Dad is still "well." You would never guess the prognosis by looking at him, he looks completely healthy.
@North East Quine hope things continue well for your father for a long time. He sounds rather like mine. One of the last things he did was buy my mum a gadget for opening jars as he knew her wrists weren't strong enough to do it easily.
My MIL is still causing lots of concern. Elder sister-in-law went up there yesterday to find that due to miscommunication between the younger two siblings MIL had been wearing the same clothes for two days and had had quite a few 'accidents', which meant both her and the house was a mess. Carers are supposed to be starting next week, but I really think, though though it will be due to visiting restrictions, a care home is shortly going to be the only option.
My late grandmother foretold that my father would die on a palindromic date. Thus I have been somewhat anxious about today - 02 11 20. We visited again yesterday and Dad was looking tired and a bit grey, but he had been sweeping leaves (!) before we arrived and had overdone it. I am reassuring myself that if he is well enough to sweep leaves, he is doing ok.
Gran herself died on a palindromic date - 29 2 92 so perhaps her fore-sight was a bit off!
Dad himself hasn't mentioned the palindromic date, so either Gran didn't share this with him, or he thinks Gran didn't tell me.
Allegedly. Her mother-in-law, my great grandmother, was known to have Second Sight and was consulted by neighbours. I'm not sure if Gran had the Sight independently of her mother-in-law, or if it rubbed off, or if, if you are part of a family, even by marriage, which has the sight, random comments are elevated to prophetic status.
One of my early memories of Dad, when I was about 6, was of him sitting me down for a Serious Talk. I must have said something which worried him, because he told me I must never try to have the Sight. He said the Sight is a burden to be borne, not a gift to be sought.
I don't have the Sight, but I've got a sense for what might be called thin places. That sense fuelled a childhood fascination for history, and now I can't tell what is academic knowledge and what is intuition.
We had a student on teaching practice at school who was most fearful of anything that might be the Sight, and she was adamant that once having been seen, the future could not be altered. It was clearly something she felt very strongly and with reference to something personal, so I didn't pursue it.
I am in awe - and prayers emanating - North East Quine, Clarence and others. My AP has recently mentioned the possibility of a brief respite (building construction next door has sent her crazy) but is otherwise just dwindling into a confused and often belligerent state. The building noise has abated now and she'll return I fear to snarling contentment.
(While charming those who don't know her well ... my hope with the respite possibility was that enough people would tell her how amazing she is - conversations that she stores up and repeats to me over and over again - that she would chose to stay and be admired).
I almost have love-envy for those of you who have watched this journey with such courage and love. My weekly-or-so phone calls are not an act of love, but I hope the vestiges of human decency. My sister, who feels the same way, carries the burden with weekly - or so - visits - and is mainly abused (verbally) for her efforts. But 98 years is a long time to forge habits of hardness. AP will continue to snap at (almost) all and sundry from her home, and won't, I suspect, have even a brief sojourn in respite care because carers are interferers, in her books.
Having vented, though, I emphasize that I so admire those of you who are practicing Christlike love and care for those who are slipping from your sight. I hope I have for others, in ministry, but sadly AP is by and large reaping what she has sown (and yes, forgivenness and the scar tissue of her own life will continue to be ingredients in my thinking about her - I'm only partially a bastard).
Zappa, my feelings towards my mother are very close to what you described, and my mother is 20 years younger than yours. In my mother's case, it's the process of cancer treatment that has hardened her to the point where she is not to be reasoned it and, on a personal note, I barely recognise her. As far as I am concerned, this is also a matter of her reaping what she has sown, because it is her summary, unreasoned pronouncements and random attacks that are driving me and, increasingly, the rest of the family away.
Dad is still "well" so either Gran was wrong about the palindromic date of death, or Dad will surprise the doctors and still be here on the 12 1 21.
My grandmother was amazing, but you didn't mess with her. Like most of his generation, Dad's childhood was impacted by the war - my grandfather was away for five years and my grandmother was effectively a single parent juggling work, children and sleepless nights in the air raid shelter. I think my father has always tried to be the father he wished he had had (and would have had, were it not for Hitler.) I benefitted doubly because my grandfather, having missed so much of his own children's childhood, was determined to make the most of his grandchildren.
Thanks for posting that, @ThunderBunk . Despite wrestling with the issues for 40+ years of faith (it didn't matter in my previous atheistic worldview, I was just a shit) I have never lost the sense that my feelings were somehow deeply anti-Light (if I can put it that way), are deeply reprehensible.
I felt bad the moment I posted it ... sort of tainted. It's good to know even on this thread of so much love and feeling their are others who struggle with, for want of a better phrase, tainted love. Or try-hard lovelessness.
I will say this for my APs--when there's a family emergency, they usually come through. My retired nurse mother just called my son's university, wholly off her own bat, and reamed out the COVID officer for the disaster they're making of student and community health (see: tests, none available; none nearby; no standardized reporting system; no medical oversight; no freaking regular CHECK IN CALL on students isolated by themselves with no one to know if they're alive or dead). My son was in awe. The powers-that-be got his food to him, and supplied him with a list of much-needed contact phone numbers for emergency, for supplies, etc. Then I called in and er, repeated the messaging in a much more diplomatic form, added a couple of ways they could easily and without cost step up their game, and (just possibly) might be able to forge a helping relationship between them and an outside organization. We'll see.
It would seem that formidable women - albeit with different approaches, run in your family. Good to hear LL and his fellow students have a better chance of having their needs met.
It wasn't on purpose. I spoke with her in the morning, and she called me back half an hour later to sheepishly confess that she had reamed out the Authorities. I had to laugh.
But I'm very pleased, as LL has had it really driven home to him that his family has his back, and that we won't take any shit when it comes to his welfare. Being an (occasionally) shy and retiring person, he needed that.
Nice to know, LC, not just that you two have got his back, but that she’s got your back too!
One of my nieces, standing up for herself and friends in a difficult situation, described it as unleashing her inner Grandma (in relation to my mother). My mum was delighted!
Every once in a while Mom has an 'episode'. I'm sure I've told you about some of them. She had another one yesterday, so I had to put on my (marriage) counselor hat. The two saddest things are that she really, truly thinks these things are true and Dad has no idea what to do. Well he does, actually. He calls me, which is exactly what I've told both of them to do if they need me for any reason.
They get stuck in a script where Mom says the same thing (I left your Dad when he was messing around with other women and lived on my own and worked to support myself and my kids) and Dad responds the same way (as God is my witness, I've never been with anyone else since we married.)
Mom remembers her kids, and knows I'm her daughter, but was not able to connect that I was one of her kids when I tried to help her remember that I was always with her, and she never left Dad.
So, I tried something totally different. Mom says she's not angry at all about Dad's 'going out on her', but couldn't tell me why it was bothering her yesterday, so I asked Dad to look Mom in the eyes and apologize for any hurt he may have ever caused her. Of course, Dad's script started coming out of his mouth first, and I had to stop him and basically repeat after me. I think he finally got it, and then I asked Mom if she forgave him. She said she would try, so I suggested that she tell Dad that.
At least there was calm in the house so I felt I could go back home. Until the next episode.
That's very hard. You have remember you're addressing essentially dream logic in which unconscious content surfaces and creates narratives.
I remember my mother fearfully recount how she had seen a neighbour in his car on his way to kill himself and she'd failed to intervene. In fact, he died of cancer. What was haunting her was the suicide of a friend many years before.
Trying to enforce real life (No, your wife is not somewhere in the flat, but dead) is just distressing. You have somehow to reach the fear behind the story and soothe it.
Firenze, you are right. I'm pretty sure I know what is behind that particular narrative of Mom's. And the others, too. It may never be possible to remove those false memories from her, as they're probably based in childhood trauma and very likely dreams, too.
It's just hard to help her to not be distressed and worried about these things.
Before she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Mom had other real to her beliefs that nobody was ever able to convince her were not true. Perhaps she has a paranoid personality stemming from her traumatic childhood. Long ago I suggested she should see a mental health counselor. You can imagine that the suggestion did not please her at all.
You have to say whatever works. Mr F made a successful response once to my mother when she was worried that she'd dreamt about some catastrophe 'These things go by opposites'. Groundless of course, but on the right wavelength.
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It's very likely you've caught everything. I did, with my sister. It's not true that there's ALWAYS something you forget. (My mother kept telling me so, and I'm two years' out from my sister's death and still perfectly okay with how we parted.)
I'm going to strongly suggest you get video/audio of him while you can, as you'll miss that voice. Make some of it completely non-emotional--not just "I love you" but also "Pass the damn eggs, would you?" so you can listen to it without completely breaking down. You might see also if you can get something that strongly reminds you of his smell--a bathrobe or something, his cologne or aftershave.... Your Mom might be better placed to help with this.
If there's any family history, genealogy, "Who exactly IS so-and-so to us?" or skeletons you need to get caught up on, now's the time.
Ditto the extremely mundane but necessary passwords, safe keys, and where'd-you-put-the-title-papers discussions.
Other than that, just spend as much time as you can, in as unflurried a mindset as you can manage. I spent hours sitting on my sister's bed, holding her hand while she slept. I don't regret a moment of it.
ETA: In re COVID, there will come a point where avoiding hugs etc. is a waste of time, medically speaking. My sister took risks she shouldn't have, but during the last few days of her life, who cared? It wasn't going to change anything at that point. (Well, there was someone who cared, but it was more that person's own style of handling stress, to fuss over things that didn't matter anymore, and nothing to do with any real danger.)
It's when I hear old blues songs with double entendre lyrics I miss him the most, as I know how much he'd love me sharing them with him.
Reading that underlined to me how far from that I am with my mother, whose death is not as imminent, but is nonetheless predictable within the next five years or so - not nearly as long as it sounds.
Fundamentally, I'm not sure we have ever REALLY connected, from my birth onwards (I was premature, and in an incubator for 28 days having been apparently fine at birth). I'm really not sure she ever got over the shock, or trusted herself to care for me.
This manifested itself in many ways over the years, but most strongly in crippling (for her) and suffocating (for me) guilt. She was also ill for much of my childhood - with depression and undiagnosed coeliac disease - so I was always afraid, for as long as I can remember, of being too much for her.
She gave the best of herself to her pupils. I saw this accidentally once by taking her lunch to her when she had forgotten it. I was back living with my parents at the time, having graduated in the middle of a recession. On seeing who it was she deflated by about 90% to talk to me, and then resumed full stature the moment she turned away.
Throughout my adult life, we have tried to connect but only fitfully succeeded. Now I'm not sure we ever will, as the trauma of cancer treatment seems to have shrunk her personality and withered it. I am still hopeful for at least a partial recovery, but feel that deep connection will always, in this life at least, something we both long for but we don't achieve. Coming to terms with this fact is not without its difficulites.
Last night I finally slept - 10 hours! -and I think it's because this thread let me articulate what was whirring round my brain.
@Sarasa my father and I have previously argued about his wishes for a funeral - he wanted an extremely minimalist funeral, which I thought wouldn't be fair on Mum. But now, with Covid, it looks like he'll be getting exactly the funeral he wanted.
@ThunderBunk my relationship with my mother is far less straightforward!
I regret the fact that his last waking memory of me was that he thought I was pushing on his nose when I kissed him good luck before he went in for the second operation - but it was actually the breathing tube thingy, which he hated.
I’m sure it will be difficult coping with your mum over the next few months, especially as she doesn’t react to events as you do, or as you’d want her to do. I don’t have any good advice there but hope somebody else does?
We will have to sell her unit in a retirement village and I'm really confused about the lump sum payment we are expected to make up front if we arrange for her to remain there. She's a DVA war widow pensioner and only has the unit at the village as her main asset. Any advice/experience welcome.
My daughter went to get car to drive me home. I was to meet her at door of hospital. Because of the drops and thus troubles with both eyes, plus light shield (strip of sunglass lense which clamps to temples) I ended up hopelessly lost in the basement of the hospital. I had a cell phone, but running the darn thing is beyond me if I can't see it. And what would I say anyway? "I'm somewhere in the hospital, not where I would like to be....". A kind cleaning person got me safely out to the car. I was less than 50 years old at the time.
Thanks Gee D, I think we might talk to DVA first.
Caissa, the same happened to my brother, but he was slightly younger - 53. For some reason the fact that my brother had a detached retina prior to the age of 60* had to be added to my optometrist's notes, as apparently it increases the chances of the same thing happening to me.
As my brother has my mother's brown eyes, and I have my father's blue eyes, I'm hoping that our eye-genetics are totally different!
*I think it was 60 - or maybe 55? - at any rate he was under the relevant age.
Fortunately Dad is still "well." You would never guess the prognosis by looking at him, he looks completely healthy.
😢, prayers for you all 🕯
My MIL is still causing lots of concern. Elder sister-in-law went up there yesterday to find that due to miscommunication between the younger two siblings MIL had been wearing the same clothes for two days and had had quite a few 'accidents', which meant both her and the house was a mess. Carers are supposed to be starting next week, but I really think, though though it will be due to visiting restrictions, a care home is shortly going to be the only option.
Prayers ascending for wisdom for the family and all involved.
We d always resisted, so it was both a shock and a relief when a consultant brutally spelled matters out
Gran herself died on a palindromic date - 29 2 92 so perhaps her fore-sight was a bit off!
Dad himself hasn't mentioned the palindromic date, so either Gran didn't share this with him, or he thinks Gran didn't tell me.
I don't have the Sight, but I've got a sense for what might be called thin places. That sense fuelled a childhood fascination for history, and now I can't tell what is academic knowledge and what is intuition.
(While charming those who don't know her well ... my hope with the respite possibility was that enough people would tell her how amazing she is - conversations that she stores up and repeats to me over and over again - that she would chose to stay and be admired).
I almost have love-envy for those of you who have watched this journey with such courage and love. My weekly-or-so phone calls are not an act of love, but I hope the vestiges of human decency. My sister, who feels the same way, carries the burden with weekly - or so - visits - and is mainly abused (verbally) for her efforts. But 98 years is a long time to forge habits of hardness. AP will continue to snap at (almost) all and sundry from her home, and won't, I suspect, have even a brief sojourn in respite care because carers are interferers, in her books.
Having vented, though, I emphasize that I so admire those of you who are practicing Christlike love and care for those who are slipping from your sight. I hope I have for others, in ministry, but sadly AP is by and large reaping what she has sown (and yes, forgivenness and the scar tissue of her own life will continue to be ingredients in my thinking about her - I'm only partially a bastard).
My grandmother was amazing, but you didn't mess with her. Like most of his generation, Dad's childhood was impacted by the war - my grandfather was away for five years and my grandmother was effectively a single parent juggling work, children and sleepless nights in the air raid shelter. I think my father has always tried to be the father he wished he had had (and would have had, were it not for Hitler.) I benefitted doubly because my grandfather, having missed so much of his own children's childhood, was determined to make the most of his grandchildren.
I felt bad the moment I posted it ... sort of tainted. It's good to know even on this thread of so much love and feeling their are others who struggle with, for want of a better phrase, tainted love. Or try-hard lovelessness.
But yay for Grandmama Bears!
But I'm very pleased, as LL has had it really driven home to him that his family has his back, and that we won't take any shit when it comes to his welfare. Being an (occasionally) shy and retiring person, he needed that.
One of my nieces, standing up for herself and friends in a difficult situation, described it as unleashing her inner Grandma (in relation to my mother). My mum was delighted!
They get stuck in a script where Mom says the same thing (I left your Dad when he was messing around with other women and lived on my own and worked to support myself and my kids) and Dad responds the same way (as God is my witness, I've never been with anyone else since we married.)
Mom remembers her kids, and knows I'm her daughter, but was not able to connect that I was one of her kids when I tried to help her remember that I was always with her, and she never left Dad.
So, I tried something totally different. Mom says she's not angry at all about Dad's 'going out on her', but couldn't tell me why it was bothering her yesterday, so I asked Dad to look Mom in the eyes and apologize for any hurt he may have ever caused her. Of course, Dad's script started coming out of his mouth first, and I had to stop him and basically repeat after me. I think he finally got it, and then I asked Mom if she forgave him. She said she would try, so I suggested that she tell Dad that.
At least there was calm in the house so I felt I could go back home. Until the next episode.
I remember my mother fearfully recount how she had seen a neighbour in his car on his way to kill himself and she'd failed to intervene. In fact, he died of cancer. What was haunting her was the suicide of a friend many years before.
Trying to enforce real life (No, your wife is not somewhere in the flat, but dead) is just distressing. You have somehow to reach the fear behind the story and soothe it.
It's just hard to help her to not be distressed and worried about these things.
Before she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, Mom had other real to her beliefs that nobody was ever able to convince her were not true. Perhaps she has a paranoid personality stemming from her traumatic childhood. Long ago I suggested she should see a mental health counselor. You can imagine that the suggestion did not please her at all.