I'm getting ready to head back home after spending the labor day weekend here with my folks. Thankfully, my brother has been in and out which always adds laughter to this sad house. My father continues to amaze me and is always so thankful for my just being here. It relieves his stress level just to have me around. I honestly feel like I do nothing here. My dad loves to cook for me when I come and on this trip I was nursing a foot injury so I needed to just chill.
But I feel such an overwhelming blanket of sorrow when I am here. My mother has moments when she looks at me and tells me she loves me, but then she disappears again. She tried to eat a stapler at dinner the other night. It feels just like raising my toddlers so many years ago, but with no joy. When a child learns you rejoice with them, but this is so painful to watch. Her days are full of just wandering around.
My father needs daily help now and he is committed to getting continual help. It is a strange relationship with caregivers. They become like family and you need to trust them, but you are also their employer. It makes for a complicated relationship. My main concern now for my dad is his skin condition. He is wearing his stress, but he keeps looking to God to just help him here and now. My dad is truly modeling the verse "Do not worry about tomorrow for today has enough trouble of its own."
One genius move on my Dad's part has been to buy a new golf cart. It is really nice and my mom loves to ride in it. It also helps my dad look for her quickly when she wanders away. I rode her around in the cool fall air for 2 hours yesterday. I just started talking about my life and occasionally she had a reaction. It really wasn't too bad. There is never complete clarity, but the fog clears enough for some sort of connection for just a moment. I do not expect those moments anymore, but they still come once in awhile.
But every morning the house smells like pee and poop. She has lost most all control of that area. When my kids were little, I often walked in to greet them with the same smell in the air and it did not gross me out as their mother. I often spoke tenderly to my kids and was even proud of their big diapers. But turn that around with a daughter to a mother and something in my heart is crushed with sadness. I keep telling myself to move on and let it go, but I feel so stuck. That is not a helpful thought and it only causes me to feel worse about feeling bad.
Perhaps this is just my weakness. I move slowly through pain. I need more time to grieve and entrust things to God than others. I can see other areas of my life where this is true. I think people call this Grace. Giving myself grace to just be here and not demand I be somewhere else now. No one is driving me but me. Everyone I know has nothing but compassion for me and my family. Alzheimers is so cruel.
Every day is different for my Dad. Mom had some anger the other day with a caregiver and her sleep has been spotty, but as soon as a pattern emerges, it changes. I still don't really even know how to pray, other than "Jesus". I don't have a clue what is best anymore. Perhaps I never really did.
So come Lord Jesus come and fill up this place. Hold my hand for I am sad and overwhelmed today.
