Things don’t necessarily go as well as all of this below, often, anyhow– but there are moments that remind me just how hard Mom is working all day every day to try and hold on to whatever she can. She is not giving up, and moments below make that clear. The hardest part of helping maintain some semblance of skill is that they all need to be able to do what is most normal: Doing things on their own. This, of course, is fraught with danger — but if safely done, littered with reward.
November 21, 2017
Woke up 30 minutes ago to the sound of dishes in the kitchen. After a few seconds, I got up to go and see Mom and what was going on.
“What are you doing?”
“(exasperatedly) Making coffee!”
Well, she was actually stirring a tea bag in hot water, and she had just used the element to boil water in a cooking pot, poured it into her cup, turned off the element and nothing was wrong in any way. I got her by the hand, grabbed her tea for her and helped her to lie down again on her bed. She was also fully dressed, and there is evidence she had done things a lot of us need to do in the washroom upon waking up. None of this had gone wrong in the slightest.
She is now drinking that tea & watching Perry Mason in her bedroom. She had a remarkably functional burst today. I am simultaneously freaked out that this much was going on (using the stove, etc) without waking up me and my only-one-good-ear– and yet very happy for her. Is it possible to be both scared and proud at the same time? To want to both discourage and encourage the same exact thing? Not like it matters. Part of the freedom of getting to this point with her is that my whole essence– even that little part that wants to believe in miracles– no longer worries about trying to fix anything. It’s about how life is all on ice now, and there just aren’t breaks. And you can’t hit the brakes, either. We can steer, though.
I’m most pleased with how little this affected me. This is the sort of thing that can make a caregiver come unglued if you are foolhardy enough to think you can do anything about it.
Instead, it made me smile, see my mother refusing to give up on who she is, act independent and now she’s on her bed wearing clothes she picked out and drinking the tea she made for herself. I am actually having coffee, and now I’ll listen to the radio for a bit. I’m getting old, too.