This weekend I went to visit with my mom. At this point I go every other weekend minimum. Yes, there is some residual guilt around that, but mostly that feels like how we patterned our lives before Alzheimers. My mom would not want me to trade my entire life for her - and frankly I would not survive that either.
At the start, I spent every other day with her for 10-12 hours all while working full time. I used 7 weeks of vacation one day at a time. After we moved her to Memory Care, I spent Wednesday evenings with her and all day Saturday. We played cards, I did her nails, we went to dinner in the dining room. I dropped Wednesday night and started back up at Women Writing on that night. And about the time she moved to skilled care nursing, I started with every other week.
These past years were hard. But I am so glad to have done that while it still mattered. Now it mostly matters to me. I don't think she knows who I am anymore. And if I get up, walk away and come back, it's like she's seeing me for the first time. I have had to get OK with all these changes, because the alternative is to quit on her. Too many people have done that to her....her priest, her friends, her children. I lost friends who were absolute in their conviction I was making the wrong choice. Well, not friends really I guess, because real friends would get it.
My revelation from this weekend was this: I have made a lot of mistake in my life - things I regret, things I imagine and re-imagine until it's just so. There aren't as many things I'm sure I have gotten right in my life - or any. But this - this is one I am sure of.
I will not abandon her.
It's not duty.
Or some deathbed promise I made to my dad.
It's because I love her.
And this is what love looks like.
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