…today is the anniversary of the beginning of what we did not envision would be “the end”…..1 year ago today, we moved our mother into a skilled nursing facility at the wonderful age of 94 years and 6 months. Her life was full of determination, resilience, deep faith, perseverance of health challenges, loneliness as a widow, great joy of being a sister to 6 sisters, wife for almost 40 years, mother of 4, grandmother of 9 and great-grandmother to 12.
Many people can offer similar statistics and attributes of the longevity of their loved ones. As I have been thinking about what this past year has meant to my family, I would be short-changing some of the hard cold realities of the aging process. It is in this vein that I am sharing some of our lessons and the journey we were fortunate and at times, not so fortunate, to have traveled with mama. The aging process is not for the faint of heart, so, get ready, YOU and I are on this path too….
For 33 plus years, mama has amazed us with how she has handled life with such independence. Mama was just 61 when our dad died. There was a lot of life ahead of her. AS we heard and knew stories of other friends and families with the transition of losing a spouse, we knew mama had “faced” this hurdle and we have been blessed with this “gift”.
…..well, I am not certain of the “day and time” of anything significant that caused any one of the 4 of us to recognize a decline in her physical or mental capabilities. It has been a process as we observed her stamina to drive to and from Raleigh for visits, our visits home for a weekend, time with her sisters began to cause her to nap and rest more frequently. All the while, she continued to “do her thing” and maintain control over her business affairs…until, the print was getting hard to read and the volume of the TV was getting louder. We also knew that managing her chronic back problems were creating further assistance needs…walker/rollator support.
Fast forward, over the course of these later years, mama had “the talk” with us individually and together as a family unit….this conversation was her effort to make her wishes clearly known to us….live out her days in her home. We did our best to honor her wishes; however, a couple of years ago, with a culmination of poor vision, hard of hearing, limited mobility and stability, burning her muffins in the microwave, etc., all became indicators that her safety and welfare were at heightened risk of a catastrophic incident.
We tried various scenarios to make her wishes of independence a reality and the decision was reluctantly and finally made for her to move to another “home” to allow the 24/7 attention. Mama expressed concern that even her children had reached ages where our health and physical abilities for her were limited as well as being with her 24/7. She also had proven that just “being there” 24/7 did not prohibit a tumble or two.
I have had a year of reflecting on how we got to the place a year ago, and the reality of being right there is on the edge for us all. What I want to encourage you to do, is to have “the” talk with your parent, spouse, siblings or whoever. Get yourself familiar with their heart’s desires and be strong in setting boundaries of safety and welfare…and, don’t be surprised, they want to remain independent and self-sufficient and will navigate (manipulate) that desire to a fault.
In every family, there needs to be a point person to coordinate the needs of your parent or whoever. No child is relieved of assistance at this stage of life – just as no parent is relieved of responsibilities when underage children. We all did not agree on what we wanted for mama; however, in the end, we honored and did our best to communicate and help her understand, even this move, was our way of being able to ensure care which we could offer. Mama never said, “this was the right thing to do” but I am at a peace that she understood exactly what we were facing – she and her 6 sisters had to make a similar decision with her own father. Mama modeled this “journey” for us. We visited often and we took her calls whenever and for ever how long she wanted to talk. Aging, caretaking and care managing are not for the faint of heart for either.
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