Caring for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honors – Tia Walker Author of The Inspired Caregiver
That afternoon after having lunch with my mother I took her home, suggested she rest and I would go to Walmart for needed items. Then my phone rang. Her neighbor said, “Your mother has gone to the hospital by ambulance. I arrived before she did. You know it’s not good when the nurse ushers into a tiny room with two chairs, a small table, and a Gideon Bible. I flipped to Psalm 23. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil…I knew I was there, in that valley.
Care-taking was difficult and often I wanted to quit. Care-taking a parent is not for sissies. Nowadays I watch friends take care of their parents and my heart aches. Some say it’s like taking care of a child again. It’s anything but like taking care of a child. A child learns something every day: an aging parent forgets how to do something every day. Children grow out of their fears of the dark: a parent grows into them.
Friends encouraged me to join a caretakers support group. I resisted. Eventually I joined the group. Mom insisted I sleep with a beeper. I couldn’t sleep at all, and I couldn’t tell her no. The support group laughed at me. They gave me permission not to sleep with a beeper and don’t tell your mom anything.
My college roommate was taking care of three aging parents, her parents and her mother-in-law. At the social security office she waited in line for hours, she finally got an agent only to be told she’d have to bring her father in because they couldn’t verify she was his daughter. She replied “Do you think I’d go through all of this if I wasn’t his daughter? Don’t you think there are easier ways of committing Medicare fraud than this?” The agent said, “Next.”
I watched the movie “Hanging Up” obsessively during my care-taking days. Meg Ryan plays the daughter taking care of an aging and senile Walter Matthau. You’d think it was a downer to watch a movie like that, but I kept telling myself if Meg could do it then I could. Meg said, “How can a man who can’t remember where he left his pants remember his daughter’s telephone number?” I wondered that myself.
After that dinner on what would be our last day I asked, “Momma, did we have a good day?” She looked me in the eye, “Yes, we did,” That night when she drew her last breath, I realized that every single moment had been worthwhile.
My friend, I just wanted to encourage you; when all is said and done, you’ll have no regrets. Cry if you must, laugh when you can.
Shannon Bardwell is a writer living quietly in the Prairie. Email reaches her at [email protected].
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