What do you do...

I realize this site is about stories. Well, this is part of my story.

My mother died a little over a month ago on the morning of Easter Sunday, 4 Apr 2021. Now, a month later, I find myself motherless on Mother’s Day for the first time in the fifty years of my life.

To give you some background, my mother suffered from dementia for close to nine years. She started her trek through a few assisted living communities, needing increasing levels of care as the years progressed. In September 2019, I quit my job, moved my mother in with my spouse and I, and began being her full-time caregiver.

We had a plan we were following that I would provide the main part of her care and we would hire a nurse to come in on a regular basis to give me a few little breaks throughout the week. Of course, we had no clue COVID-19 would strike. So, on 13 Mar 2020, the nurses stopped coming and my spouse and I were on our own, caring for my mother 24 hours a day, every day.

Now, I’m not about to try and explain what being a caregiver was like. If you haven’t been a caregiver for someone with dementia or Alzheimer’s, you honestly wouldn’t get it. I don’t mean to be rude by saying this; I’m only being honest. As a caregiver, there is an unexplainable feeling you get at some point and time. I believe there is a level of functioning a caregiver reaches that is far beyond what most would consider their emotional limits. Just when you feel you can’t take anymore of something, you continue to take it for months and then for years. Again, if you’ve been there, you understand. We functioned in that state for almost nine months before I was begging for a nurse to come in and help us.

And I was never under the guise that there would be a cure for this horrendous disease. I was fully aware that the end result would be her being taken from us. As the saying goes “we are all slowly dying.” However, it was the act of witnessing an individual whom you have loved your entire life fading away a little each day that was somewhat overwhelming.

Mother’s Day started good. I no longer cried as soon as I walked downstairs in morning, the silence and stillness deafening. My spouse’s parents were coming over for dinner and there were a number of things we needed to do in preparation for their arrival. I thought it would be nice to send out a quick note through text or messenger to wish all of the mothers I knew a loving and Happy Mother’s Day. As the replies started to arrive, along with their “thank you’s” I also received a number of thoughtful condolences of various types - “thoughts of you during this difficult time”, “I know this must be a hard day for you”, or something to that equivalent. I appreciated every one of them. However, up until that point, I hadn’t thought of the impact nor the realization that I was, in fact, motherless on Mother’s Day.

I felt I needed to reply to a number of them and thank them for their kindness and thoughtfulness. About halfway through typing my replies, it hit me like a brick to the face. I began to cry heavily as memories of my mother and all we’d been through rushed through my mind. I looked around the house to gain some control over my sobbing but was met with exhausting failure because my mother is ever present here in the house.

Sure, we changed furniture around in attempt to get the bottom floor close to the way it was pre-mother coming to live with us. We donated her clothes as she would have wanted us to do. And we even donated the unused supplies to help others who are going through similar struggles and are in need of the items. But it’s all for naught because no matter what we do, she will always be here with us.

As the day wore on and my crying finally tapered off, we went on with preparations for the evening gathering. All the while, pecking at me in the back of my mind, were thoughts of different events and experiences during my care for her. Staying true to fashion, all the negative things leapt to the front of my thoughts. All the times I got frustrated and said something rude or nasty. Yes, of course, I was exhausted and living on about five hours of semi-unsound sleep a night. Emotionally, I had been burned out for months and every day was filled with a sense of numbness from the overwhelming wave of emotions that crashed upon me as new signs of her decline presented themselves. The only thing I can relate this too is if you have been in a fist fight, after being punched enough times, the pain is replaced with a type of numbness. It’s not exactly like that but it is the closest I can think of.

The guilt haunts me daily because I feel I should’ve had better control of my feelings. I feel I could’ve done a better job of caring for her. My spouse tries to comfort me by reminding me how much good I did, we did, for my mother. And by reminding me that my frustration was about the disease and not my mother, which is true. I also agreed that if we were to leave her in the last facility she was in before coming to live with us, then she probably would not have seen the middle of 2020. But it doesn’t take away the guilt and shame I feel every day that I should have been a better person. My mother deserved better but got me instead.

Despite my times of frustration when I said something rude or complained, I still did what was needed to care for her. Cooked, fed, cleaned, dressed, groomed, talked to, laughed with, kissed, hugged, and held her hand every day, because it was the right thing to do. I always said that she cared for me when I was young, and it was now my turn to care for her. I try to let those thoughts comfort me, but it’s hard pressed to happen.

So, what do you do to shed the clinging cloak of guilt? How do you shut out those negatives and focus on the positives I got to share with my mom? Sadly, that is my battle to fight. There is no instruction book or advice that can be shared that can help. It is an internal battle I must undertake myself. Well, maybe not completely.

My mom’s mother passed back in 1995. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of or miss my grandma. And my mom’s wishes were to be buried next to her mom and I’m proud to say that we made sure this happened three weeks ago.

My grandma’s favorite bird was always the cardinal. Figurines and pictures of them were scattered throughout my grandma’s house. And those things eventually made it to my mom’s house after my grandma passed. I always thought my grandma would check up on me when a cardinal came close by me. Every time I saw one, I would always think to myself or say aloud, “Hi grandma. Thank you for checking in on me.”

On the morning of this Mother’s Day, after my crying session, I went to the front window of my house which overlooks my grandma’s birdbath and the bird feeder nearby. As I gazed out on the garden, two cardinals came and landed - one on the feeder and the other on the ground below. Then they quickly chased each other off into the sky.

I couldn’t help but think that this was my mom joining my grandma in checking in on me. It may be silly to think that such a thing is even possible. Honestly, I don’t care if it is. It’s what I’m going do now that my mom has died.