Posts Tagged ‘caregiver’
Making a List: Including Fun in the Caregiver’s Journey
“You need to do something fun,” a friend said.
“I’m too tired to think of something fun,” I said.
My parents were going through a particularly hard time; my mother’s behavior had gone beyond the scope of assisted living and they had advised that she go into a psych ward to have her medications re-evaluated. My father was worn to a frazzle and we were both unnerved by Mom’s zombie-like appearance as the doctors tried to figure out the correct combination of medicines. Fun seemed like a word from another planet.
Yet I realized my friend was right: I needed to do something that would cheer me onward.
Creating Fun-Sized Options
So early one morning, before I was tired or confused or sad, I made a list of little items or activities that gave me a sense of well being.
At first, the list was small—I was too brain-worn to think of much:
Eat chocolate.
Read for pleasure.
Do a crossword puzzle.
Walk outside.
Talk with people I cared about.
I crammed the list into my pocket and when I thought of something new, I jotted it down.
During the next week I added:
Listen to Dancing Queen.
Hold a stuffed bear.
Collage.
Go to yoga.
Sleep late.
Dance to Dancing Queen.
Making Time for Fun While Still Being a Very Responsible Person
That weekend, I vowed I would do three things on my list. I ate chocolate (OK, that was an easy one, but I had to start somewhere!), talked with a friend, and read two chapters of a mystery.
I felt lifted up, as renewed as if I’d had four hours in the spa. And I still was there for my parents, my work, and other life responsibilities. So I continued the process of adding to my list and incorporating one fun thing into every day. Sometimes it was only part of a crossword puzzle or creating a three-minute collage while I was on hold with my mother’s doctor. But even those few minutes gave me back a part of myself and allowed me to more fully appreciate my interesting and chaotic life.
Q for U:
How about you — what are the small fun things on your list? And are you giving yourself time to do them?
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Bringing the Faraway Closer
Many weekday afternoons I stole away from my workday for a little rendezvous. I drove far into the southern part of the city.
There I hurried through the lobby, walked swiftly down the corridors and until I reached the locked door. There I punched in a secret code that allowed me into the inner sanctum, the memory care unit where my mother lived.
Walking into my mother’s room was always a surprise: I never knew who would greet me; a sweet curly-haired woman wearing a pink sweat suit and looking quietly compose? An anxious haggard woman who bent to pick up invisible lint on the floor and jabbered with invisible creatures lurking in the corners? Or an exhausted former beauty, lying across the single bed wearing an orange pullover and an adult diaper? My task was to appreciate every aspect of my complicated mother and whoever she was at the moment.
When my friend Maril asked, “Can I go with you to visit your mother?” I felt like a flutter of angels had gathered around me.
“Really?” I asked. “You want to see Mom with me?”
She did. I prepared her for our visit, describing Mom’s various moods. Maril did not seem shocked, worried or afraid. I told her about walking into the sometimes chaotic energy of the locked Alzheimer’s unit. She simply nodded as if this were an ordinary occurrence, which, for me, it was.
The day of our visit I felt lightness inside; I was eager to share my secret world with my friend.
Throughout the years, Mom has always been gracious with my friends and that day was no exception. Mom was sitting at a table in the dining room with a magazine in front of her. She looked pretty and serene and she smiled when we came in. We sat next to her and Maril took her hands.
“How are you Fran?” Maril said, looking into my mother’s eyes.
“Well I you know the scatter of it all,” my mother answered.
“I do know the scatter of it all. How are you getting along here?”
“Like a diamond in the sky,” my mother said.
As I listened as my mother and my friend talk, I was “Your mother is really something,” Maril said as we left the home. “I enjoyed seeing her. I’d like to go again with you sometime.”proud of my mother’s poetic and eccentric answers, proud of the way she engaged in the conversation. And I was grateful that my friend was able to appreciate my mother, listen to her words and intuit their deeper meaning.
The visit was a huge gift for me. Seeing Maril engage with and appreciate my mom just as she was reminded me of the depths of my mother’s many talents and facets. This knowledge later helped me get through those moments when my mother seemed faraway or lost. My friend reminded me- there are so many ways to carry on a good conversation. All you need is attention, intention and love.