This marks article #101 in Mondays with Mom. Thank you for taking this journey with me.
Mom loves her snuggles. She has always loved to cuddle and caress those she loves. My earliest memories are being tucked under her protective arm and holding her hand. At church during the sermon, I would study her rings or her Bible sitting in her lap while sitting right beside her. Occasionally she would let me lay down with my head in her lap and she’d ruffle my hair in rhythm to the preacher’s words.
Snuggle is one of my favorite words and is often used in relation to another favorite: cozy. One of the definitions in urbandictionary.com is “the sharing of love between two people by keeping each other warm, safe, and happy overall.” Cuddle is a good word, too, but I always think of the CuddleBug Baby Wrap Carrier. I remember carrying our newborns in the sling so I associate cuddling with infants.
Until her fall in May of 2016, Mom and Dad shared a queen bed. Dad is more hot-natured than Mom, but he says she’d need him to snuggle right up next to her and put his arm around her so she could sleep. For more than sixty years they slept like this, with Dad readjusting the blankets to tuck her tightly to keep her cozy after he’d get up in the morning. It was quite tough for him to learn how to sleep alone. Although she’s been sleeping in her chair (and now the hospital bed), occasionally she requests us to climb in the bed with her.
Since Mom isn’t talking very much, it’s hard to understand what she needs. She might get anxious or begin moaning, but Mom responds favorably to snuggles even better than our words. I’ll brush her hair off her face with my fingers and cradle her face in my hands. I’ll pull up the sheets and blankets to her chin and tuck them around her shoulders. She’s often cold so I’ll put on yet another blanket and tuck it in. She looks “snug as a bug in a rug.”
My children had many favorite books, some we read over and over! We snuggled together to read a lot, especially at bedtime. All of us loved a book by Robert Munsch called Love You Forever. It’s the story of a mother-son relationship from the moment she brings him home as a baby. After each adventure, she sings to him, “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, As long as I’m living, My baby you’ll be.” She sings to him through his growing up years and even drives to his house after he leaves home to pick him up and snuggle. On the day she becomes too old and sick to hold him, the roles reverse. It’s a beautiful story with a chorus I still sing to my now mostly grown-up children.
Although the book wasn’t written until 1990 when I was mostly grown-up, I can imagine Mom singing this to me because I am literally her baby – and the baby of our family. For the past fifteen years, however, I’ve sung it to her. The roles are reversed and I care for her like a baby. I make sure she’s snuggled in and warm. I encourage her to eat and wipe her mouth after a messy bite. She deserves to be cuddled.
Our whole family cares for Mom and we appreciate our extended family: Jean, Laverne, and Clara. It takes a team to care for someone with dementia. Caregiving is a 24/7/365 job. We are so blessed to have a whole team keeping her cozy with snuggles.
