Another new year is upon us. As I make my resolutions, I wonder what the new year will hold. I certainly didn’t have any inkling of the changes that 2015 had for my family and me one year ago. As I read over the holiday memories and 2014’s Christmas letter, it was amazing how much had happened that changed and shaped our family’s world.
Change really is the only constant, isn’t it? Caregiving has a daily sameness, but there are many almost- imperceptible changes that happen every day. Much like I used to do when my children were small, I‘ve begun to mark the days carefully. I used to wonder with each piggy back I gave a child if it would be the last piggy back ride. Or the last evening prayer. With Mom, I now mark the walks. Is this the last time we’ll walk down the driveway? Somehow I missed the last time she went to the Aquatic Center to walk. It’s been months and I’m not sure she could manage it on her own anymore. It is like raising children only in reverse. She’s growing less independent. As with the kids, it’s only in hindsight that we realize something is passed.
With children, their passage to independence is melancholy but amazing, too. After all those years of pushing them, they can suddenly pump their legs and swing alone. The years of watching us drive lead to the day the children drive off solo. After years of asking them to clean up their room, suddenly they have their own space to keep tidy (or not!). But with Mom, I feel only melancholy. It is a much more biting loss. She can’t shower alone so someone must help. She struggles with getting dressed so she needs help there, too. Those aren’t skills that may be recovered. They are gone.
Even as I marvel at my children who are becoming adults, I am lamenting my mother becoming a child. It’s hard now to see the strong, fiercely independent woman who raised me lost in her thoughts because the conversation around her is too hard for her to comprehend. I am devastated the voice that sang hymns all her life gets stuck on one melody for weeks at a time and she makes up new words to fill the tune. It’s unbelievable that the woman who was always perfectly coiffed doesn’t care her hair is wild.
Dad said this morning the only thing he can predict each day is that Mom will do something unpredictable. It reminds me of tending a toddler. There was a show that ran for many seasons called “Kids Say the Darnedest Things.” Art Linkletter would interview a child. Oh, some of the things the kids said! That’s where we are now with conversations with Mom. There’s no way to anticipate what she will say or do. She has always been a stubborn woman. I am one, too, so I recognize it in others. (Something, too, about an apple not falling far from a tree, or something like that.) Mom cannot be coerced or convinced to do anything she hasn’t a mind to do. Whether it has to do with food or clothing or exercises, it’s best to guide her thinking so she thinks it is her idea.
As we close out 2015, it is hard not to reflect on things past. This year’s passing seems to me more unsettling than the previous year’s. Perhaps that is because of my age or the age of those under my care. Perhaps it has to do with writing this article each week. Whatever the cause, one thing is for certain: it will come to pass. I tease this is my favorite verse in the Bible: “And it came to pass.” Nothing stays. Not the good or the bad, the easy or the difficult.
No matter where you are, in a season of sickness or health, poverty or wealth, youth or old age, remember that it will come to pass. Welcome 2016.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Donna B. James is the Worship and Music Director at First United Methodist Church in Cornelia, GA. She’s a wife and mother of three children and, in her “spare” time, teaches voice and piano lessons. She’s a caregiver to her mother, Ruth, who has Alzheimer’s.
If you’re a caregiver and have a story to share or know of resources that might help other caregivers, please contact Donna at [email protected].
