Hope Returns with a Bossy Mom

Posted by RJ Thesman

Several weeks ago, I drove to Oklahoma and spent an afternoon with Mom. For the first time in months, she was fairly lucid, bossing me, like her old self.

We took a walk around the perimeter of the assisted living facility, discussed the geese who sometimes fly onto the pond for a drink or goose fellowship – whatever geese do.

Mom remarked how nice the facility is and how glad she is to live there – a reversal of the attitude she sometimes displays when she demands, “Why am I here? Why did you kids do this to me?”

Heartache piled upon guilt.

But on this day, she seemed grateful, and I saw in her the personality I grew up with – the bossy Mom who made sure her kids read at least seven books each week, practiced their musical instruments and worked hard to complete their chores and finish their homework.

Suddenly, we were transported decades back as Mom became herself:

“You need to hem up those pants you’re wearing. They’re dragging on the ground.”

“I did hem them, Mom.”

“Well, you need to do it again – another inch at least.”

“Okay, Mom. When I get home.”

Then we walked to the dining room. Mom instructed me where to sit. “Grab that chair over there. Someone else will sit beside me.”

As the meal was served, Mom worried that I wasn’t eating. “How come you don’t have a plate? Do you want me to order one for you?”

“No. I stopped at Braum’s two hours ago. I’m not hungry.”

“Well, you’ll be hungry by morning. Do you want a cookie? I’ll get you a cookie.”

“No, thanks. I eat gluten free.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m allergic to wheat.”

“Well, that can’t be right. You grew up on a wheat farm and we had bread for every meal.”

“Exactly. That’s why I have an allergy to wheat.”

“Are you sure you don’t want a cookie?”

The nurturing of children continues into old age, even when the brain is infected with Alzheimer’s plaque. A mother longs to feed her children, to make sure they are never hungry, even if they’re just visiting, even if they’ve just eaten.

After the meal, we walked back to Mom’s room. “Do you want to watch the idiot box?” (Mom’s description for the TV).

“No. I’ll just sit here with you or read a book.”

“Yeah. There’s nothing on but junk anyway.” We sat in silence for a while, then suddenly – Mom looked at me, her glasses slightly askew. “Are you dating?”

“No. I’m pretty busy.”

“Well, you should be dating someone. I don’t understand why some wonderful man hasn’t snatched you up.”

It was the nicest compliment she has paid me in years. My throat began to fill with the tears of missing my mom, of not being able to call her and discuss my latest book, of no longer sharing a shopping trip or the latest crochet pattern or the encouragement of a Psalm.

“Thanks, Mom. That’s nice.”

“Well, I’m just askin’.”

For a few hours on a hot July afternoon, Mom and I connected on a level long past. She was again the bossy Mom, demanding answers and commanding me in directions she wanted me to take.

Once again, I was the daughter and our roles were clear, not reversed or confused in the dynamics of what Alzheimer’s does to families.

And for a few hours, we sat together in peace, two women – still joined by an emotional umbilical cord.

It was sweet. I know that may never happen again.

3 Inevitable Emotions of Caregiving

Posted by RJ Thesman

It happens every time.

As soon as I turn away from my mother’s door in assisted living and walk down the hallway – away from her, the emotions hit me. You’d think I would be used to them by now. For ten years my family struggled with Dad’s dementia and all the accompanying emotions. Now that Mom has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I should expect the same feelings.

But still – the emotions grip my soul and I cry all the way to the car – then sit in the driver’s seat until my vision is no longer blurry.

When we become caregivers, certain emotions come to live with us. One of these emotions is sadness. The long goodbye, aka Alzheimer’s, triggers a sadness unlike any other grief I have suffered. It is not the unexpected grief of a sudden loss – a miscarriage, unemployment or illness – but rather the day-by-day grief steps caused by the regressive nature of the disease.

Even though Mom remembers me today, she will someday forget how to introduce me to her friends in assisted living. Sad, but true.

Another sadness lies ahead. If Mom does not graduate to heaven within the next few years, we will have to relocate her to the nursing home section of the facility.

“Never put me in a nursing home.” I can still hear the echo of her plea.

Sadness reinforces the truth that at the end of this particular journey, my siblings and I will be orphans. Grief will multiply.

Another emotion, rejection, surfaces every time Mom forgets a memory that is important to me. “Remember when?” is no longer a game we play. And when Mom does hesitate with my name, rejection swallows logic.

I know she doesn’t mean to reject me. Somewhere, cached in her soul is my baby face, her firstborn. But I miss our shopping trips and the way we used to talk about the books we were reading. I no longer hear her laughter, because she can’t comprehend jokes anymore. When I send her cards and she shows them to me, clearly imprinted with my signature, then tells me they are from someone else – I feel rejected.

Although sadness and rejection bring pain, guilt is the emotion that tortures me.

No, Mom, we never wanted to put you into assisted living, but you couldn’t live alone anymore, and all of us work long hours. No one else can take care of you. I’m sorry and I hate it. I feel guilty.

When I hug her goodbye and tell her I have to go back to Kansas, she can’t understand why I’m leaving. Reality screams that my work is a state away, and my life cannot make room for my mother. I am the long-distance caregiver in the family, demoted by miles and the work I cannot do anywhere else. Guilty again.

Even while writing this post, I feel guilty that my emotions are front and center when Mom deals bravely with her own fear, rejection and sadness.

It helps to journal about these caregiving emotions, include them in my next book, or vent with a friend. The emotions of caregiving are now my reality, and I know they affect me deeply because they are foreshadowed by love. If I didn’t love my mother so much, I wouldn’t care.

And because I love her, I’m sad that she can’t be who she used to be.

Forgetting Mom

Posted by RJ Thesman

What a crazy week!

I worked at the day job 10-12 hours, rushed home to water the flowers before they bent their sad little heads and shriveled up, exercised a bit, ate a few bites – then sat down at the computer to write, fell into bed and did it all over again the next day.

You know the routine.

But this was a different week, because I forgot Mom.

Each week, I send Mom a card. I go to the Dollar Tree and buy cards for 50 cents – fun cards with little animals or happy faces – usually in the kid’s section.

Then I go home and write a little something to Mom about my work or about her grandson in college. I pray over the card, ask God to help my mother through another day of Alzheimer’s and stamp it for mailing the next day.

As the long distance caregiver in the family, this is my weekly attempt to assuage the almost daily guilt I feel because I can’t be there for Mom. I send a card and hope that somehow through the miles, she will hear my love and know how sorry I am that I can’t do more.

But last week – with all the extra activities – I forgot to send the card.

I romped along in my busy life, helped several women with their issues, coached some clients, wrote a blog post, spoke at a church event, worked on my novel – and totally forgot about Mom’s card.

Guilt sandwiched between two slabs of more guilt.

On one side of my heart, I know it doesn’t matter. Mom never remembers that I send cards and sometimes – even with my signature scrawled on the bottom – she tells people that my cards are from her sister.

But even if she can’t remember, I need her to receive my cards and to know that I care. I need it because even if she doesn’t care about the cards, I do.

And yes – I know I will someday deal with the guilt, when life isn’t so crazy – I’ll grieve my way through it and write pages in my journal or enough of these blog posts to somehow bandage the grief.

In the meantime, I’ll send another card – right now – and hope Mom will open it in a couple of days, laugh at the graphic on the front and tell somebody, “This is from my daughter in Kansas.”

Why?

Posted by RJ Thesman

God has never answered my question, and I seriously doubt that he will. However, he is kind enough to let me rage against him, scribble in my journal and cry out my frustrations.

“Why have you let Alzheimer’s take over my mother’s brain? I still need her.”

I want her to tell me how to live with vitality and fun in my sixties like she did.

I want her in my life, not just physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. I want her to tell me how she dealt with the circumstances of her life and how she remained strong as Dad’s caregiver through ten long and bitter years.

I miss how she used to sing “I Wonder as I Wander” at Christmas while she rolled out spicy peppernuts on the kitchen counter. That was the only phrase she knew of that song, so I laughed as she repeated it over and over.

Every Christmas, I hear that echo as I roll out my own peppernuts and miss her all over again. In this Alzheimer’s state of physical health and mental decline, she no longer sings – unless someone starts one of the old hymns that triggers a memory.

I want to know how we are supposed to accept age with joy when we have no divine models for it.

Jesus, after all, died young. He was only in his thirties and he stayed dead only three days. How would he have aged if he lived into his eighties? How would he have dealt with his mother Mary if she forgot how to tie her shoes, how to cook his favorite meals or even – heaven forbid – forgot his name?

Was that even possible?

We are supposed to exercise, read, play board games and work in order to stay mentally alert. My mother did all of those things with regularity and discipline, so why didn’t that formula work for her?

Will it work for me?

In my novel, Reverend G often repeats the phrase, “The question may be ‘Why,’ but the answer is ‘Who.’”

Even though I wrote those words and believed them when Reverend G said them, today and in this particular stage of my mother’s Alzheimer’s journey – I want to know more.

I believe God knows and he doesn’t have to tell me, but somehow I need to keep asking the question.

I know I’m supposed to trust him. Even while my soul is torn by the rejection every time Mom forgets what my son and I do, even when I feel guilty as I drive away from the assisted living – somehow I’m supposed to trust that God knows why and it’s going to be okay.

Maybe I believe that someday – he’ll answer.

Long Distance Caregiving – Emotional Dynamics

Posted by RJ Thesman

Living with Alzheimers and/or dementia causes a host of emotions—especially for caregivers.

Mom’s emotions aren’t that difficult. She lives in a contented land where all she has to worry about is where she put her teeth during the night and can she find her underwear the next day. Even then, somebody helps her with those questions.

But for the rest of us—whew boy! Until I entered this journey with my siblings, I had no idea of the emotions that might swirl around us.

As the LDC, there is of course, the emotion of guilt. But it is a false guilt, a self-condemnation because I can’t be in Oklahoma all the time, helping with Mom.

At the same time, I’m glad for my life in Kansas and the work I do. I’m proud of the ministry and the incredible women I help as well as my growing coaching practice and my writing life.

Guilt raises its ugly head whenever something happens, and I’m too far away to help. Then when I visit Mom, guilt rides home with me because I can drive away and my siblings can’t.

Another emotion that affects us is grief. One possible advantage of dealing with Alzheimers is that we grieve little by little rather than in one traumatic explosion. With each change and every increase in confusion, with each memory lapse, we grieve a little more.

We understand that these lapses will grow in frequency until Mom no longer knows who we are.

We also know that some day, Mom will stop breathing and this horrid journey will be over. So we don’t have to deal with a terrible shock of a tragic death. Mom dies a little bit every day, right in front of us.

Each time I drive to Oklahoma and then back to Kansas, it takes about 10 days to process my emotions, journal about them and return to some place of normalcy. I can only imagine the emotional toll on my siblings.

I don’t know if the emotions will ever ease, or if we’ll just grow in the need for more grace.

But that’s why it’s important that caregivers take care of ourselves—whether we’re right in the thick of it or dealing with it long distance.

Emotions can tear us apart or make us stronger. I hope to finish well.

5 Ways to Stall Creativity

Posted by RJ Thesman

When the words flow, our creative juices whet the appetite for more. Writing becomes enjoyable work. But when we have to fight ourselves to keep in the chair and force our fingers to keep typing – then we wonder why in the world we ever chose to do this mammoth task.

Most of the time, when I sit in front of the computer – my fingers just take off. But occasionally, I have to force feed the sentences and that’s when I try to discover what has stalled my creativity.

Perhaps it is one of the following:

Lack of sleep. I know some writers crawl out of bed hours before they need to be at the “other” job or they stay awake long after Letterman says, “Goodnight.”

But I can’t do that. If I don’t get my regular eight and sometimes nine hours of rest, I invite sickness, crankiness and all sorts of nasty attitudes. Nay, nay. To be creative, I must sleep.

Stress. Neck muscles tighten. Blood pressure soars, and a headache begins to throb. Stress visits through unpaid bills, too many night-time activities when I don’t get the afore-mentioned shut eye or when anything at all happens to affect the car.

In my opinion, any type of car problem equals stress which results in stalled creativity. I find nothing at all creative about oil changes that turn into leaky hoses, bald tires or anything at all that is goofy in the transmission. I might have less stress if I just bought a horse.

Wrong Direction. Sometimes we have to write a while to find out which direction the characters want to go, but if we come to a block where nothing is happening and we’re bored with our own words, creativity stalls.

That’s when the writer reverses gears, discovers a new character or resorts to binging on chocolate.

Fear. What if no one wants to read my incredible manuscript? What if I write and write and no one ever nominates me for the Pulitzer Prize? What if an asteroid hits the warehouse where all my books are located and obliterates every word that I have so carefully crafted?

The what-ifs with their roots in fear equal stalled creativity.

Guilt. So you decided to spend several of your precious hours working on your novel, but life interrupted and you didn’t get it done. Now you feel guilty because you’re supposed to write every day (that’s what they tell you in the conferences) and you haven’t done it.

That monstrous guilt voice overpowers you and stalls your creativity. You decide God probably didn’t call you to write after all, which adds to the guilt because real Christians are supposed to know what God wants them to do.

So how do writers unstall and move forward?

I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out in the next post. Right now, I’m feeling stressed and I need to sleep.

Tip # 5 for Caregivers

Posted by RJ Thesman

Healthcare professionals emphasize the importance of caregivers taking care of themselves.

Reverend G would agree.

We can’t sit beside the bed day after day without a respite. We’ll go crazy. We need to take a break.

We need to utilize the daycare centers for Alzheimer’s patients and share our struggles with support groups. We may need to spend time with a therapist to deal with our own emotions and the beginning stages of grief.

We need short vacations and long vacations.

Remember how our parents left us with babysitters so they could have a night free? The roles are now reversed, and we need to do the same. Take a break. Schedule a free night.

Some ways to take of ourselves include:

Walk through a rose garden and thank God for all the varieties He created.
Browse through a quaint little bookstore, pet the store cat and buy a book—then take the time to sit down and read it.
Observe the Sabbath and share a meal with friends.
Spend time alone and do nothing.
Go to a movie and munch on the popcorn that isn’t good for us.
Watch a funny video.
Take time to enjoy a sunset and thank God for the golden sky.

And if your loved one is in such need of care that you can no longer do it, find the right facility and arrange for the best of care. Then don’t feel guilty.

My friend, Esther Kreek, cared for her husband for 16 years. She is now 81 years old with a speaking itinerary about historical topics. Esther says, “I don’t do windows or guilt.”

None of us want our children to feel burdened or to grow sick because of the stress of our care.

So… take care of yourselves.

RJThesman.net

Author | Coach | Speaker | Editor

guilt

Hope Returns with a Bossy Mom

3 Inevitable Emotions of Caregiving

Forgetting Mom

Why?

Long Distance Caregiving – Emotional Dynamics

5 Ways to Stall Creativity

Tip # 5 for Caregivers