a previously unposted rant and a bit of insight

I wrote the post below about 18 months ago but never published it.  It feels like now is the time to update it and post it.  So here it is.

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If you are my age or older and not dealing with a parent or spouse with dementia, please shout out mighty thanks.  I am not complaining here.  I am not looking for sympathy or advice or anything really but I need to vent.  Care centers, nursing homes, whatever you want to call them?  Nobody wants to go there.  Nobody wants to take their loved one there.  Nobody wants to change their parent's or spouse's diapers.  Nobody wants to have their diapers changed.  Sometimes I think that if one more person tells me they hope somebody shoots them or gives them a bunch of pills rather than take them to a care center, well, I might just scream--REALLY?  Is that what we should do with Jack's mom and my dad?  Yesterday some one told me if he developed dementia, his kids should just give him a granola bar and release him into the forest and walk away.  OMG.  This dementia thing sucks.  There is no easy answer.  It would be so great if everybody could keep their loved one in his or her home and take care of him or her and still have a full life.  But I watch my mom trying to care for my dad at home, totally isolating herself because she won't leave him there alone or with anybody else, and I think it's just a matter of time before he falls or has some other accident or she gets hurt or he loses the ability to walk or something worse that I haven't even imagined yet.  And then what?   And as hard as it is to see Jack's mom declining in a care center, I know we can't give her even a tenth of the compassionate, loving care she receives there.  I suspect it is even worse for people who didn't or weren't able to save and invest wisely like Jack's dad did all his life.  And even though we spend large sums of money for the compassionate care his mom receives, honestly, the place is still chaos.  So what are the options when bodies are failing, minds are going, life is ending?

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Time changes everything.  Several months after I wrote those words, my dad suddenly declined and passed away.  It was a painful release.  So hard to let him go while knowing full well that his quality of life was nonexistent.

Seven months later, my mom was living with us.

And one month after that, on a Thursday afternoon in April, Jack got a call from Silverado, the care center where his mother was living.  The doctor said she had been having difficulties so they'd performed an ultrasound on her kidneys and found one was 90% blocked from draining and the other was completely blocked.  We had anticipated this call for several years and had expected she would die from kidney failure, so the call wasn't unexpected but it was still a surprise when it came.  We knew she had been declining, but she was still up walking around and reciting nursery rhymes and eating well and patting nurse's butts.  He said it was only a matter of days.  We told the family, and all day Friday, her loved ones came and visited.  She seemed to enjoy so much seeing everyone.  By late afternoon, she was exhausted, nodding off in the wheelchair we'd needed to use to move her to a room that was big enough to accommodate all of her visitors.

Jack and I stayed with her that night, doing whatever we could to keep her comfortable.  The staff was very helpful, administering pain medication as often as possible.  It seemed to us that she was still listening even though she didn't say much that night or the next day.  We stayed with her again Saturday all night.  I sat by her side, holding her hand, listening to her breath become more and more ragged.  The staff assured us she was not suffering.  We talked to her about good times in the past, told her how much we loved her, stroked her cheeks and forehead and hands and arms.

We went home around 8:00 a.m. and I fell into a deep sleep.  After two nights without sleep, I was exhausted.  Jack tossed and turned and eventually fell asleep.  At 11:30 a.m. we suddenly woke up and a moment later, his cell phone rang.  It was his sister calling to tell us their mother had passed away.  It was April 9, 2017.

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I've been present for the births of several loved ones and present or nearby during the deaths of several loved ones, and I've come to realize that these experiences and the emotions I've felt are best described as sacred.  Not sacred as usually used in a religious way, even though sacred is defined as having to do with spiritual matters.  I'm defining it as a deeply emotional, deeply spiritual (but not necessarily religious or churchy) experience.  If that makes any sense.  Yes, there may be celebration or mourning, but these are events that every individual experiences in his or her own deeply felt way--we come in alone and we go out alone, even if surrounded by others.  It seems vital that we recognize the sacred nature of these events and respect the individuals who are experiencing them.

I felt my babies' movements during pregnancy, bonded with them long before they were born, but something special occurred when they transitioned from inside my body to outside my body and took their first breaths and released their first cries.  These were overwhelming, powerful moments in my life that included joy and fear and concern and love and I now recognize these times as deeply sacred moments. 

Watching a loved one die feels so very similar to me.  I felt a very clear transition, a process, an acceptance and a peace when my gramma passed away, when my father passed away, and during the time we stayed with Jack's mom as her body gradually died and her soul gradually left her body.  It was a deeply sacred time that we tried to honor with quiet respect and loving care.

I see life now as a time in which we begin as infants, helpless and alone.  We grow and gain and learn and experience life, and at some point, if we live a long, full life, we begin to decline and experience loss.  Loss occurs in many ways--loss of family, friends, abilities.  And eventually, we transition from life to death.  Perhaps it seems more difficult when a young person dies because they haven't had the time to find their way to the best version of themselves before they are gone?  Or they are living life with family, children, friends, and can't possibly be anywhere near the decline that logically should precede death? 

I don't know the answers for any of these questions, but I know the sacred experiences of birth and death are some of the greatest gifts I've been given.  I will always treasure them in my heart.

catching up some more

Today when I got out of the car at my house after a dental appointment, I smelled the scent of roses before I even saw them.  These beauties have been in my gardens as long as we've lived here and every year I am delighted by their effort to not only please the eye, but also the beautiful smell they produce.

It doesn't seem to matter to them how much effort I make to keep them healthy and blooming.  Roses are one of the easiest plants to grow, once they are established and as long as they don't freeze.  But even if they freeze, they convert to the wild rose stock they were grafted onto and cover themselves with countless, smaller but equally delightful blossoms. 

Earlier this year, after my mom joined us, I was out in the gardens one day and I thought about roses.  How very little effort they require to provide so much enjoyment.  They have so many good qualities--their lovely blossoms, their unparalleled scent, how easy they are to grow and enjoy.  But I also remembered the one thing about roses I don't love.  The pruning.  I don't like pruning because roses, for all of their good qualities, also have thorns.  I cannot prune them or even get very close to them without coming away a little scratched and even bleeding.  So incredible yet so prickly.

I realized as I pondered roses and gardening and the changes in my life at that time, that my mom is like a rose.  She has so many good qualities.  So many traits I admire and love.  Just like my roses.  And like my roses, my mom can be prickly sometimes.  Sometimes she only pokes or scratches a bit, but sometimes it feels like she is drawing blood.  Just like my roses.  And also like my roses, she isn't prickly on purpose--no, it is simply a part of who she is, just like all of her good qualities are parts of who she is.

These wandering thoughts in my mind were a gift, a blessing that has helped me remember the gift and blessing of having my mom living with us.  I never thought for a second that my gardens could help me adjust and willingly accept this gift.  But they have.  I love my roses even more now.