I awoke this morning to a text from my sister-in-law.\u00a0 Apparently\u00a0 my father didn’t recognize her this morning.<\/p>\n
Dad has known and loved Colette for about thirty years and she comes to my parents’ home regularly to manage their care.\u00a0 (She’s an RN, very smart, and much more organized than the rest of us.)\u00a0 This moment marks a sad milestone in one of many marking Dad’s decline.\u00a0 I confess I’m a little worried he might not recognize me when I come home for a visit in one month’s time.<\/p>\n
I told my boss the other day that I needed to go home to visit my parents.\u00a0 I mentioned that Dad was going to be going into a nursing home soon and as I said this, I teared up.\u00a0 Tshering, a Buddhist, wisely said, “That’s the way of things.\u00a0 You and I will go into a nursing home, too, someday.”\u00a0 It was such a serene and matter-of-fact way of looking at it – completely lacking all the drama that I imbue the situation with.<\/p>\n
I have been filled with fear and sadness about this impending move of my father from their home of almost forty years to a nursing home.\u00a0 I am afraid he, who is already disoriented due to the insidiousness of Alzheimer’s, will be even moreso in a foreign environment with no one around that he recognizes.\u00a0 Of course we will all visit as much as we can, but for large portions of the day he will, no doubt, feel very much alone and probably even more confused than usual.\u00a0 I’m afraid he will decline with more rapidity than I can bear to watch.<\/p>\n
This decision to move him into a home has been a difficult one – and not necessarily universally embraced.\u00a0 Some of us are worried about Mom who, even with the assistance and intervention of a team of fabulous caregivers and several children, has trouble coping with Dad almost 24 hours a day 7 days a week.\u00a0 Her patience has been greatly taxed.\u00a0 In addition, it is increasingly difficult for the caregivers to adequately attend to the needs of both parents simultaneously.\u00a0 Dad needs to be monitored fairly constantly not only because he is an “escape risk” but because he no longer remembers where the bathroom is and sometimes, due to his poor addled brain, will go to relieve himself in inappropriate places.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Mom needs emotional attention as well as support with things like bathing.\u00a0 And then, of course, there are meals to be made, laundry to do, dishes to be done.\u00a0 Bless these caregivers.\u00a0 They do an absolutely amazing job.<\/p>\n
My one sister and I have been slower to board the nursing home bandwagon.\u00a0 Dad has been an exemplary father.\u00a0 It hurts to think we cannot find a way to continue to care for him in his own home.\u00a0 But in addition to all the above, we are running out of money.\u00a0 Even after a lifetime of saving and a couple of wise investments, their money is disappearing fast.\u00a0 In addition to the costs of heating fuel, taxes, food, medication, insurance, electricity, and phone, we have caregivers twenty-four hours a day.\u00a0 Caring for elderly people is not cheap.\u00a0 Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to care for our elders.\u00a0 My siblings and I all do what we can –\u00a0 each of us has helped with day-to-day care, health care, finances, moral support, and a myriad other tasks, but with jobs, families, homes, and limited income ourselves, there do not seem to be too many options left.<\/p>\n
This morning I went for a walk through the woods.\u00a0 At one point I came upon a fallen aspen tree.\u00a0 Somehow it had become completely severed from its roots; I could see the jagged edge at its base where once its roots had been.\u00a0 And yet it laid there on the ground in all its white-trunked, golden-leafed splendor.\u00a0 Even without obvious nourishment\u00a0 coming from the earth, it was having a last gasp of life and beauty.<\/p>\n
I wondered how long it would be before the beautiful golden leaves turned brown and crinkly and fell from the branches.\u00a0 And then I thought of how those leaves would decay into beautiful rich-smelling humus, and then the branches, and finally the trunk itself.\u00a0\u00a0 And that sweet new earth would then nourish the seeds of other trees.\u00a0 New life would grow from the decayed matter of this tree.\u00a0 This tree would soon die, but the cycle of life would continue.<\/p>\n
Dad’s body will eventually return to the earth, too.\u00a0 Possibly sooner than this daughter is ready for.\u00a0 But his spirit will live on.\u00a0 And the seeds he has planted in his life will grow; they will mature, branch out, bear fruit, and spread their own seed.\u00a0 Life will continue.\u00a0 Form will change, but life will continue.\u00a0 This is the way of the world.<\/p>\n
Thank you, dear Tshering and Aspen, for helping me to see what I needed to see.<\/p>\n
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I awoke this morning to a text from my sister-in-law.\u00a0 Apparently\u00a0 my father didn’t recognize her this morning. Dad has known and loved Colette for about thirty years and she comes to my parents’ home regularly to manage their care.\u00a0 (She’s an RN, very smart, and much more organized than the rest of us.)\u00a0 This…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":553,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,393,351,3,396,311,26,397,172,394,221,133,329,400,20,398,141,30,399,272,401,395,176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alzheimers","category-aspen","category-autumn","category-blessings","category-buddhist","category-caring","category-change","category-continuity-of-life","category-death","category-decay","category-dying","category-earth","category-elders","category-family","category-father","category-life","category-metaphysical-messages","category-nature","category-new-life","category-nourishment","category-nursing-home","category-physical-decline","category-transformation"],"yoast_head":"\n