She was back

Wednesday afternoon I had a date. A date with my mom to go grocery shopping. Not very glamorous.

She's been struggling with cooking as she recovers from a fall and rod inserted from her hip to knee. Generously her church, friends, neighbors and two clubs to which she belongs have been keeping my parents well stocked with food. But the meal train (yes, there is a scheduling website by that name) ends next week.

And she wants to be independent, so I suggested we create a list and shop. Her diet is complicated. I was looking forward to quality time and getting the chance to discover who she is these days after a surgery and two months away.

In recent years, we have discussed that I am her mother and she is Lily – or that we share the other's characteristics. I am quiet and sensitive much like her mother and she is feisty and independent like my youngest. This knowledge helps me understand my daughter and our relationship better and the same for my mother and our complex connection. I think there is no relationship more complicated than mother and daughter. PERIOD.

I left my studio Wednesday afternoon in enough time to drop by the house and say hello to my daughters. Oddly, no one was home, so I texted my husband, who said the girls had walked to McDonald's for a snack and to do their homework. The proximity and free WIFI make it a convenient choice. I swung by and got roped into buying food for my youngest. She's perennially hungry. My oldest was fighting with a slow internet connection to finish a paper. I said I had to leave in 10 minutes to get Mimi (their name for my mom) and take her shopping. They were so engrossed that I felt invisible and mute. Once again, I announced that I had to leave if they wanted a ride. No response, so I waited in the parking lot, texted with no success and left to collect my mother. It was not the way I would have wanted to leave. Things unfinished. Unsaid. Teenagers.

When I arrived at mom's, she was tucked in to her back bedroom watching a movie, waiting. Took awhile to gather her jacket, walker, purse and grocery list and slowly exit from the treacherous garage step and into my Prius. Thankfully, it sits low to the ground and she had no trouble swinging her bad leg into position and getting comfortable. I had anticipated an ordeal. 

My dad handed me their handicap-parking permit, which enabled us to park much closer. My mother insisted on walking, not being dropped off. It was interesting to see how people responded to her slowness. Generally, they were kind, except those in cars in a hurry.

We picked out a motorized cart with the gentle help of a store employee. Can I just say I LOVE the people at my local Kroger's? They alway go the extra mile, like the time I experienced a pain meltdown in the frozen-foods aisle when I came for one thing, skipped the basket and buckled under the weight of one-too-many items. A cheery face offered help, left, then quickly returned with a cart. I made sure to tell her manager.

Mom had a blast driving the cart and did really well, which surprised me since she can't drive anymore ... she lost her peripheral vision in a surgery, we think. I reminded her not to nip my heels like Lily always does with the cart. She didn't.

We both had lists. She penned one and I jotted down some things I thought would be easy. They were very similar. We began scanning the aisles and conferring on choices, getting that list under control. It was a very fruitful two hours and I was able to witness how much better my mom is than I had expected. When I couldn't remember that last thing on the list, she did, immediately.

I might have been prepared for this nice surprise if I had paid more attention to what a physical therapist had said in the hospital a few day earlier. A severe episode of vertigo kept here there four days. The PT marveled at her ability to maneuver given her recent surgery. She is religious in completing her strengthening exercises.

And the way she whipped around the store in that cart. Yes, Lily is HER granddaughter. Completely. And my mom is herself.

• How do I handle those I love age?
• How do I handle my own aging?
• Have I learned to ask for help?
• Can I befriend this part of life?
• How does it draw me closer to Spirit?


frail, I feared
walker, slow steps
and all

faded memory and
a somber duty

INSTEAD

the moving
cart became like
a new toy to
be tested and tried

and she passed
with flying colors

the memory had
thrown off the
anesthesia hangover

and she was
BACK

Listen to this post:

Underestimating my mother

Witnessing a parent decline is excruciating, plucking at and uncovering every minuscule  heartstring as you wonder if you've done enough or gotten what you've done right.

How do you care for a parent in a loving, compassionate manner that honors and respects their position in your life as well as the person they are, have been and will become?

This is a place of twisted fate and odd role reversal.

Accompanying my mother as patient and father as caregiver as an adult child is a complex maze, perhaps even a minefield, as I desire to assist them over telling them what to do. Often they amaze me, sometimes surprise me and, rarely, infuriate me. I hope to be more of a guide, carrying out their wishes, than dictator or purporting to know what's best. I want to help them stay independent and in their own home as long as possible. That's also my wish. 

My mother bravely faced a difficult nine-hour surgery head on. She knew in advance that was not the struggle. "What will I know?" she said. "I''ll be knocked out." The recovery would be, she anticipated, her challenge.

In a wonderful Quaker clearness committee, the process of surrounding yourself with trusted others to discern where God is moving by deep listening and thoughtful questioning, she discovered this recovery would be her surrender to Spirit. However, I think she believed it would be a few months, not and entire year as her family practitioner gently, but firmly, reminded her of last week. My father confided that they had heard a year, but did not truly believe it would be that long. She's always bounced back before, we all had remembered.

She's not bouncing back now. I would describe it as more of learning a slow dance, one new step at a time. Long and steady, but surely happening if you can be present to the details we once took for grated: walking a few feet, dressing yourself, getting to the bathroom, having an appetite, remembering and seeing with unobstructed vision. These have all become new obstacles to at once surrender into and master. How that works, I am uncertain, except through faith, trust and prayer.

Improvement is evident in her color, humor, determination and acceptance of help.

Last night in my warm circle of neighborhood book club women, we chatted about aging parents, memory loss, demeanor transformation, expectations, letting go, illness and feeling sandwiched, ever grateful they are still with us. One of the most gracious remarks was about how one mother struggling with dementia still knows to say thank you and I love you. And, when she fails to remember the story she 's trying so hard to relate, acquiesces with "I'll tell you tomorrow." There are bright spots, we all acknowledged.

My mother's family physician soberly pointed out the fact she was walking, talking and cognizant was remarkable given the severity of her surgery. "Remind her of that," he cautioned me, "on bad days," which he said would happen along with entire weeks of difficulty.

Have we forgotten how to care for the aged? It's not a new proposition, yet we are surviving longer. Once, our elders lived with us in largely multi-generational families. As we have transplanted and grown more transient, we've left those customs behind. And also in our social selfishness to focus on ourselves and immediate families.

I am appalled every time I experience someone younger patronizing an elder. It happens in hospitals, nursing centers, in public and privately. In attempting to be true to Spirit's calling, I try to "see" the whole person, beyond the encumbered climbs, faulty mind, thinning hair, stained skin and veiled eyes. We are each a child of God, no matter our age or condition.

• What is my experience of aging – my own or someone else's?
• What are the difficulties?
• Where have I witnessed grace?
• What part of the spiritual journey is this?
• How do I recognize myself and others as children of God?

in a surprise visit
on a snowy Sunday
when roads were
nearly vacant

I spied her head
drooped,
as she napped
in the wheelchair

I took that as a cue
and treated her
gently, perhaps
too much so

later, she beamed,
suggesting we
witness her progress
in the walker

with my husband
ahead, she
lurched forward,
perfectly in control

teasing him with
her new moves
and teaching
me to never
underestimate
her, 
her courge,
determination,
spirit and
faith

never

Listen to this post:

Fragile existence

Listen to post:

How do you process your own mortality, perhaps our greatest fear?

Last week, when a doctor delivered some extremely pessimistic news to me about my mother, which has not proven yet to be true, it hit me so hard that when she dies, so will a piece of me. In his arrogance and unruly bedside manner, I think he has prepped me for when the time does come. Well, as much as one can be prepared. There’s something so basic about losing your mother. I’ve been so fortunate to have mine over 50 years.

What, exactly do we lose?

• Our identity.

• The one person that has known us longest.

• The one person who has always cared for us even in times it made us crazy.

• One of the few people who truly knows us.

• Our innocence in being able to be childlike with someone.

• Our ideal of invincibility.

• A connection.

• Someone who will love us no matter what.

• The person who came before.

• The person who carried us.

• Our daughters’ grandmother.

Life becomes more important when exposed as fragile. We take it for granted less. We pay closer, more careful attention. We live more in the moment. We become more grateful.

We also get stressed, begin to grieve, get caught up in care needs, tend to the other’s spiritual needs, sometimes neglect our own, pray, storm at God, are amazed at her power and deflated by our human stamina.

It’s such a tangled web, this web of transition. Through it, however, I am realizing I am more afraid of dying than death. The suffering, to me, seems worse than the escape. I understand not all dying is filled with pain.

Then I look at my mother who, admittedly, on paper, appears sicker than she is. Her cardiologist agrees. This is the fourth or fifth hospital stay in three or four years, yet the first real time I felt her life was in danger. But, maybe I have forgotten. I have never received such grave news from a medical professional. Fortunately, he is NOT her regular cardiologist. One week exactly after his awful phone call, the nurses who shepherded me through that difficult spot were elated at the change. One even said, “We do know Who’s really at work, don’t we?”

The day before her release, a nurse assisted my mom to some physical therapy steps as she said her thighs were getting like jelly from being in bed or sitting so long. She tried to do some fancy steps and even pretended to kick me. “She’s baaaaaaaaaack,” I joked with my sister.

She’s back – for how long I have no idea, but do any of us? – and I am ever so grateful. I will try not to take her presence for granted.

• When have I been confronted with death?

• What reaction did is trigger?

• What has (or would be) such a pivotal loss been like in my life?

• What has life’s fragility taught me?

• What has facing, or contemplating, death taught me?

one day

she’s driving my

11-year-old on errands

the next,

fighting an

infection in the ICU

never losing her

verve, also not

knowing the

pessimism

her seeming

innocence

buoyed her spirits,

convincing us

all of

God’s

loving power

and our

fragile

existence