Good Morning Mother

It is a beautiful morning here in Redondo Beach, California. The sky is blue, the sun is shining and the temperature is holding steady at 70 degrees. My garden patios have all been planted with colorful flowers and each one is blooming nicely. The birds are thrilled with the new bird feeder and the squirrels are searching out the peanuts I've left for them. I live in paradise.

I've been absent from this blog and all the others for over a month. In that time I celebrated my birthday, I drove to Phoenix for a wonderful love fest with my grandchildren, and I visited the new and improved Griffith Park Observatory. I've done all of my spring cleaning, with the exception of one last job on the list. The garage. Aside from all of that, I am teaching my classes, doing readings, planning retreats and workshops and caring for my mother. She is the subject I wish to write about today.

I have three older sisters who live within a two mile radius of me, which is a great comfort and help with regards to caring for our mother. Most of my regular readers know by now that my mother and I live together and have for twenty years, since my father died. She was diagnosed with dementia and macular degeneration several years ago. So, losing her mind and her vision simultaneously has presented my sisters and I with more than a few challenges this month. Mother can no longer remember to take her medications and she's been told to start using a four pronged cane to steady her tendency to imbalance. She cannot be left alone for more than 90 minutes and never before she's been well fed so that she won't try to use the kitchen stove. She's to wear dark glasses when in the sun and our house is all sun. I just counted the windows in this room. There are twelve of them and the largest ones are on the south side of the house. We get all day, bright, hot sun in our living and dining rooms which is, seriously, the worst thing for macular degeneration. Next week I will meet with three window treatment companies to install motorized blinds to block out the light. I have also called a designer, the one who designed our gorgeous kitchen five years ago, to start a design for the master bathroom so Mother won't have to step over anything to get into the shower.

My grandfather, great-grandfather and aunt were completely blind in their old age. My sister Vicky has the first signs of the same condition. It takes years to progress and there are things one can do to slow it down. Nutrition plays a large part as does weight control and exercise. Dammit. There's no getting around it is there? LOL.

I have been teaching, for many years now, that all of our experiences are created by our beliefs. I've been watching my mother and trying to evaluate the beliefs she holds that have created her experience of old age. These are the beliefs I recognise as my mother's primary reality:

1. "Senior Citizen" means "mentally retarded. When she first became a senior citizen she was furious and refused to accept it. For the first few years she refused to ask for a senior discount, until one day at the movie theater. She walked up to the ticket window and said, "I'd like a ticket to the 2 o'clock movie....for ...um you know......
And she blanked out. She couldn't even say, "Senior Citizen" or "Senior discount." Instead, she put her index finger to the side of her head and spun it around as we do to indicate "nuts" and said, "OH, you know.... for the mentally retarded." That story has brought many laughs over the past twenty years but it shows what her belief about old age was. To her, people of a certain age were nuts, or stupid or retarded. She refused to join groups or clubs for people her own age because, "I don't want to be around a lot of old people." They're old and she's....um.....I guess not old?

2. Whenever we would share a story or joke that my mother found distasteful or negative she would close her eyes and say, "I don't want to hear that." or, "I don't want to see that." Her resistance to anything negative was a message to her body. "I don't want to see it or hear it." Her hearing loss is significant and if you've read down to this part, you know she's legally blind.

3. "I'm always healthy." And she is. Her doctors are amazed. Physically speaking, her heart is strong, her lungs are clear, her bones are like steel, she's healthy. No cancer, no heart disease, not even a little. Well, she takes a mild blood pressure pill and for precaution a cholesterol pill. At 89, that's pretty good. Oh, she also takes something for her dementia but physically? she's great. She may live to be 110.

4. "I'm so curious about how it's all going to turn out." Her curiosity about tomorrow and the future in general keeps her waking each morning with gusto. "What is the day going to bring?" She reads the paper everyday, with the help of a magnifying glass, and she watches the news. She may not remember what she read or saw but the process of the moment of knowledge and information keeps her present.

Even her memory loss has it's advantages. When she got the news about having to use a cane and dark glasses and perhaps having to move downstairs to another bedroom she was very upset. She's extremely vain and stubborn and refused to buy the cane. Her eyes got teary and I'm sure her blood pressure went up with her anger about the whole line of crap that stupid doctor was giving us. That's what she thinks. "He's a quack. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I can see just fine. I'm fine." To calm her I took her to dinner at our favorite Mexican Restaurant for a Margarita and enchiladas rancheras. She said, "I'm feeling so anxious and stressed but I don't remember why. Tell me again why I'm so upset." I explained to her that she will have to start using a cane, that she is going blind, and that we may have to move out of our three story home soon. She said, "Well, hell! Losing my memory has it's advantages!" If she doesn't remember the bad news then it doesn't exist. That is how she has lived her life.

She was raised by alcoholics and was married to one for nearly fifty years. Her level of denial surpasses anyone I know. It's like Scarlet O'Hara. "Oh fiddle-dee-dee. I'll think about that tomorrow."

It's tomorrow and she can't remember what she was going to think about. She resisted hearing or seeing the truth and how she can't. It seems to work for her. Her daughters take up the slack and she gets to live out her days in la-la land.

As for me, I have her 24/7 unless one of my sisters is available to take her for the day or a movie. So far, they've been very busy with their own lives but they're a phone call away if I really need to get away. Vicky came and stayed here when I went to Phoenix but it isn't easy on any of us. I suspect that an assisted living arrangement will have to be made within the next year or so. She has some money put away but it is invested in the stock market. So, for now, I am her fulltime caregiver, cook, housekeeper and companion and in the process of this I have learned patience, tolerance, forgiveness and unconditional love.