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.