When I returned from Canada a small over a week ago, I brought my Mom back to stay with me for a couple of months. She is 86 and basically in good health. Unlike my father, she has no dementia. She has some hearing loss and her balance is not as great as it could be, but no main illnesses.
What I noticed although, soon after just a couple of days of having her here with me, is the return to the flood of emotions that comes with caregiving, and although I am not providing any direct caregiving to her, they have still returned.
Guilt is a large 1, even now. I\'ve received a variety of invitations for outings or for business meetings and just as I\'m about to respond with a \"yes\", I think, \"Oh no, I can\'t do that. Mom\'s here.\" Some of the events are very easily justifiable but invitations to lunch or an evening out listening to a new band appear like I\'d be abandoning her.
Even now, I feel badly that I\'m upstairs working on my laptop or computer instead of downstairs entertaining her. Why do I impose this guilt upon myself?
One more emotion is a bit of frustration. My mother is an artist and has performed some interior design. Even though she sits at the table perusing all the magazines I have saved for her, she is analyzing my home for improvements. 1 conversation went some thing like this:
Mom: You really should refinish this table.
Me: No, I believe I\'m just going to cover it with a table cloth. I\'m going to refinish the (80\'s pickled oak) chairs though.
Mom: No, the chairs are fine. You\'ll want to leave them the way they are. But we\'ll paint the table then. Brown, I feel.
Me: No, Mom. The table is old. I\'ll just cover it.
SILENCE....then...
Mom: Alright then, we\'ll go to the paint store and pick out a nice brown for the table.
ME: sigh....alright
(We won\'t get to it she\'ll have quite a few extra projects planned by then. Well, she already does. You ought to hear her plans for my dining room ceiling - NICE but I don\'t have the time for THAT.)
Then there is be concerned. Given that I have a household with 3 steps that go down to the patio (clearly I didn\'t plan well for aging-in-place) and her balance is a bit off, I worry every single time she goes out the door. When she\'s carrying her coffee cup to the table inside, I just cringe. Ought to I let her carry it or hover over her all day lengthy in case he wants more coffee? Is she okay alone in the shower? I do not have grab bars on the 1 that she is utilizing but she doesn\'t want to use the 1 that I had outfitted for safety for my Dad given that it seriously is inconvenient.
Sadness is a different emotion of caregiving. This past week end we went to an art festival here in town and it was clearly too a lot for her. I had been employed to seeing Mom be able to do every thing and suddenly (to me, anyway) she is slowing down. Of course, it makes me sad to see this due to the fact Mom has constantly been so active.
On the plus side, there is enjoy and gratitude. I\'m so grateful to be able to invest this time with her and I\'m intentionally taking the time to do things that we both take pleasure in. When you are young, you take your parents for granted and sometimes decide on buddies or your own young children over them.
Having cared for my father, I have come understand how precious these very good and healthy times are and how rapidly they can vanish. When you take the time to make memories, you can not only enjoy them in the present but you can hold onto them for a long time. So making memories is what I will do.
