Caregiving is a journey. I wish you all the best. It is filled with such complex emotions... there is the concern for someone's safety and how their actions and attitudes help or hinder that. There are all the unresolved issues that can lay under the surface at a point when they are not necessarily able to resolve those issues in your relationship. There are the competing emotions – wishing your loved ones to stick around, but the practical concerns that make you wish for their demise sooner rather than later – and the guilt that naturally comes from those feelings popping up in the first place. (Thoughts are not actions – don't beat yourself up).
All this swirls around with finances and health and housekeeping... and the creeping reality of one's own mortality. And when they do pass... there is a strange untethering... one strand that defines your existence slips away. So many complex feelings.
I have found it important to breathe deep and to have friends who keep you rooted ... people who remind you that joy exists. That, yes, this is temporary. Life will go on.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom, Paul. There is tremendous uncertainty ahead, including how long any of us have, but what seems certain is that it's going to be hard; there won't be some grand resolution of any open issues, and there will be little room for feeling adequate in any of it!!
What a beautiful explanation for something that's really, really hard to explain! I didn't have a prolonged period of caregiving with my mother--I almost think she wanted it that way--but all the competing emotions around profound sadness and relief, questions around the meaning of life and mortality while dealing with PITA insurance companies and unpaid bills, grief and gratitude, all of it are part of the package.
Caregiving is a journey. I wish you all the best. It is filled with such complex emotions... there is the concern for someone's safety and how their actions and attitudes help or hinder that. There are all the unresolved issues that can lay under the surface at a point when they are not necessarily able to resolve those issues in your relationship. There are the competing emotions – wishing your loved ones to stick around, but the practical concerns that make you wish for their demise sooner rather than later – and the guilt that naturally comes from those feelings popping up in the first place. (Thoughts are not actions – don't beat yourself up).
All this swirls around with finances and health and housekeeping... and the creeping reality of one's own mortality. And when they do pass... there is a strange untethering... one strand that defines your existence slips away. So many complex feelings.
I have found it important to breathe deep and to have friends who keep you rooted ... people who remind you that joy exists. That, yes, this is temporary. Life will go on.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom, Paul. There is tremendous uncertainty ahead, including how long any of us have, but what seems certain is that it's going to be hard; there won't be some grand resolution of any open issues, and there will be little room for feeling adequate in any of it!!
What a beautiful explanation for something that's really, really hard to explain! I didn't have a prolonged period of caregiving with my mother--I almost think she wanted it that way--but all the competing emotions around profound sadness and relief, questions around the meaning of life and mortality while dealing with PITA insurance companies and unpaid bills, grief and gratitude, all of it are part of the package.