Hi Denise and Everybody,

I apologize for not having been able to update sooner, with a billion busy things that’ve been going on this late spring and summer.  I hope today is a little bit better of a “today” for everybody, care givers and care experiencers alike, compared with everybody’s “yesterday.” 

May and June flew by, as I finished up what I needed to do for my second course and the end of my first academic year in my Gerontology grad program.  Of course, that all happened at the same time as the ending of Spring finals, all the activities associated with Commencement Week, and the start of Summer I Session at the community college where I work.

I finally got my summer time off, and this year was a vacation of things getting done, or needing to..me and mom both got our drivers’ licenses renewed (she’s 81…yaye for her!); then our online banking account got compromised, and that had to be followed up with dozens of calls, forms to fill out, and information to report..

Good news for mom, her transitional assistance grocery funds service got approved for renewal; and the local eldercare energy services agency approved Mom’s house, finally, to be inspected for and to receive insulation assistance with walls, wiring, etc.  She’s just also been understandably stressed because another homemaker is changing hands, and Mom’s health continues to be plagued by warm weather occasional dizzy spells, a very dropped uterus for which she wants neither a removable insert nor surgery, and loneliness.

I was thinking about how I feel sometimes like not only do I need to be so many things and wear so many hats — employee, son, caregiver, secretary, accountant, confidante, maintenance person — but I also realized that I guess I am subconsciously also expecting my mom to be a lot of things — patient, emotionally less dependent, calmer, more socially active.

And it occurred to me: I cannot be all those things that I wish I should strive to be — and neither can my mom be all the things that I sometimes wish she’d turn into.  Just like I didn’t ask for, and didn’t become trained in advance for being a son who lost a dad and ended up being primary caregiver for an elderly, increasingly infirm and grieving mother; my Mom, also, didn’t ask to become a widow and faced with a burden of so many stressful situations and responsibilities to need to learn to take care of, and seek help for, all of a sudden.

I guess the lesson is, like Denise has said to us several times, Just take one day at a time and do just the best you can in a given day.  I can only be Me, mom can only be Dottie.  We can’t be all these dozens of different people wearing different hats we don’t have — and that kind of makes the reality a bit less pressured, in a way.

I guess it’s better to learn to make the best of, and to adjust, to the reality of one’s life situations, than to stress and groan over trying to change things that won’t go away or that are not doable.  Thank God that ice-cream is doable.  And love.  And, knowing that as long as we’re doing whatever we do with a dose of love thrown into the mix, that it’s got to be worthwhile and right doing in the long run.  Wishing everybody as great an upcoming summery week as is possible for y’all!

Gary 

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