Who Cares

The Respite is Over

I haven’t posted here in a while because, well, life has been full, and I was riding the respite wave for a bit. But now, the respite is very clearly over, and we are back in the fire.

My mom was doing well for a while. She was social, going to dinner, and even rode the retirement community bus to the grocery store. I thought things were turning around, and maybe they did for a bit, but as things are constantly in motion, they’ve made a turn for, what seems like, the worse. About a month ago, we installed a camera in my mom’s apartment. This was due, in part, to a conversation with my mom about how she thinks people steal from her and wants to catch them in the act. The other part, well, that’s about us —my husband and me —we want to see what my mom is doing, particularly when I am out of town and my husband cannot get there to check on her.

Using the camera has turned out to be both good and sad. Good because we can see if she is okay, alive, sitting in her chair. Sad because I can now watch my mother slipping away in real time as if I'm watching a reality TV show on Netflix, but it is my reality, not someone else’s. And over the past week, except when she came to my house for dinner on Monday, I’ve watched her sleep, not eat, and stay in one chair within the four walls of her apartment.

I called her several times this week, only to realize she had once again let her cordless phones run out of charge. When I saw on the camera that she was okay, I just kept trying to call her because I was out of town for work. I spoke with her yesterday. The hairdresser who came to her apartment to do her hair had put the phones back on their chargers and told me my mom thought I had disappeared and didn’t know where I was, and that she was frustrated that no one had come to check on her. Right now, I cannot even do anything with the feelings I have about my mom’s conjecture that I don’t check on her. I cannot even process my feelings about this because I’m so mad and terribly sad. And if I open the door to all the feelings right now, I won’t get this proposal written that must be written now to meet a deadline, so I can continue to work and support my family.

Today, I went to see my mom. I took my dog, Jasper, which I thought would help her feel better. It didn’t because Jasper knew something was wrong. He whimpered and looked at my mom as if to say, “What is wrong with you? What’s the matter?” I looked at her in the same way. Except, I think I know what is wrong. She’s sick. She’s unhappy. She has a terrible disease. Alzheimer’s steals your life, and it tries to steal the lives of those caring for you as well. It’s a beast, and so is my mother’s will. What I saw today looked like a silent protest and a deadly battle my mother is at risk of losing. If she continues to sit in her chair, not care for herself, and not eat, she will die. I know. We all die. But without nourishment and stimulation, she will quicken her death. Part of me thinks she knows this. And part of me wishes for her suffering to end because this is no way to live. I would not quicken her death because I am not God or Goddess, and I don’t get to make that decision for her, but this really is not how she wants to live. None of us wants to live this way.

I checked on the camera tonight; she was sleeping, then fussing with the TV remote because it wouldn’t work for her. I’ve put labels on it, shown her how to use it a thousand times, and still, it won’t work for her. This isn’t working for any of us. She hadn’t eaten the food I had brought to her earlier today. I’ll go over there tomorrow because that is what we do. Caretakers show up. They don’t disappear as my mother suggests I did last week. They stay. In their weariness, they stay. I don’t wish for my mom to stay in this state. She’s in a bad way, and I call on grace and a softening now, because this journey is so arduous, brittle, and breaking.

May there be ease.

May there be peace.

May there be grace.