I have thought about getting another dog, but I've been indecisive about what breed and then there's an inner resistance that tells me I'm just not ready. Saying goodbye to Charlie was massive and I really don't know at what point I'll be ready for a new fur child. I guess it will all happen when it's supposed to, so for now it's just me, Bob and 5 goldfish.
Lib xxx
The evidence to the contrary however is constantly building and it's very evident that where I fail is in not giving myself enough credit. If I step back and view my current reality with a wider lense it's pretty clear that I can do hard things, I have the ability to be creative and pivot at a moment's notice. Being a dementia carer is honing those skills. It's just that I automatically apply those skills in my role as a carer for my friend, so rather than standing out to me I just see it as the norm.
It reminds me of job interviews when they ask you how you would handle a certain situation and your mind goes blank. Because so much of what we do is day to day and is literally done on auto pilot. There is no narrator of your actions, they just are.
The answer to fear is being brave and as I've said in an earlier post because we don't analyze our actions on a daily basis few of us realize how brave we actually are. Most of us tackle the hard stuff on auto pilot and it's not until something new that we have time to ruminate on comes along that we throw ourselves into self doubt. It's the contemplation and the stories that we tell ourselves that are what sink us into fear.
I may have mentioned it before but there is something that being a dog mum taught me. Dogs lack the part of the brain that creates story. It's how you can yell at them one moment and the next moment they're giving you kisses. They are so in the moment that their brain says I'm being yelled at and then they move on. As humans we would attach the story about why we're being yelled at, how it makes us feel and how mean the other person is. Dogs don't do this.
In the last few months in order to get through the sadness of loss and be able to function I've used this as a technique. I can think of what happened even tell someone about it and I'm ok as long as I don't attach the story and the emotion. The only thing that cracks me when I'm doing this is when someone is being compassionate to me.
Which leads me to think that this concept could be useful for facing up to situations that provoke a fear response and hold me back. Maybe if I be 'like a dog' and drop the story I may be able to push through and maybe that thing that I need to do may actually get done.
Lib xxx
Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash
A couple of days ago I unstuck myself, I've been stagnant for months waiting for a shift in energy. When we sold my parents' house, I kept a lot of their furniture to replace the mish mash I'd collected over the years. There were also books and belongings that my sister and I wanted to keep, and then on top of that boxes of things that we didn't have time to sort. We underestimated how long the pack up would take and as a result my sister and I have both absorbed boxes, furniture and appliances into our homes. I've had the boxes and furniture, in almost every room including the front hallway and I've been oscillating around where to start. Until a few days ago I couldn't see the way to fit things in but finally something shifted in my head, and I unstuck myself. I started to see the solutions and find a way forward.
I'm not sure if it was the David Kessler grief webinar or his book that I'm listening to on audible, or it could be the Jenna Kutcher Pinterest marketing program I just signed up for. One or maybe all these things propelled me forward.
The night before last I rearranged my bedroom and it's starting to look like the sanctuary I'd envisaged. And then then last night I tackled my art room. I reassembled the Ikea sewing desk my parents bought me when I was a teen and subsequently became mums' office desk and now here it is back as my sewing desk. There was a lot of mowing things around but I'm finally starting to see pockets of space reappear. It's far from perfect but it's a start.
Slowly I'm starting to get my motivation back, I'm seeing the possibilities again and there's a sense of urgency to get going. I need to make some changes and move away from the 9-5 work environment. It's time to create my world the way that I want it.
The grief is still there, the sense of loss I feel for my Dad and Charlie is huge. David Kessler says that the grief doesn't get smaller we just have to learn to get bigger. These same words were echoed in a video I saw of Robert F Kennedy Jr talking about the losses in his life. He said, "while our grief would never get smaller, our job was to build ourselves bigger around it".
I'm working on the getting bigger and I'm working on finding the pieces of me that got pushed to the side last year. My current reality still has me in 2nd place to the people who need me but I'm gradually working towards carving my own space in amongst this reality.
Little by little I'm starting to find my way forward. For now I'm unstuck and that's a big step in the right direction.
Lib x
Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash
Last night we sat and watched the Magpies in my friends backyard. They've gotten to know us and come right up to our feet to feed on the seed we scatter for them. Magpies have good facial recall and long memories, which is a contrast to my friends slowly declining memory. I find it interesting that the magpies presence is increasing during this time.
My friends facial recognition still appears to be ok with people he sees frequently. He's starting to recognise his friends from the day centre when he's with them. If I talk about them he has no clue who they are but as soon as he sees them he knows the face, he may not remember exactly who they are but the face is familiar.
A week ago we had our quarterly appointment with the Geriatrician. After many questions regarding my friends progress she turned to me and said that I needed to take a break from my carer responsibilities. She told me that the #1 reason that people end up in aged care is carer burnout. She turned to my friend and said that sometime in the near future I needed to have a holiday away from him. He agreed but I don't believe he fully understands what it means.
I'm hesitant to take a break, the thought terrifies me. At this moment in time it's actually impossible, there's no one to step in. Maybe later his family will be able to help. But always in the back of my mind is the thought that if I'm not present everyday he may forget me. It's probably irrational, we've been a constant in each others lives for 29 years, but the fear is still there.
There's also another side to this, I don't want to miss a second of all the happy moments. We have a lot of laughs together, his dry sense of humour matches mine. I want to stay present because I know all to well one day I'll be left with only my memories. The last few years I spent with my Dad and Charlie taught me that I have to savour the moments.
I understand what she is saying about carer burnout, I've been at the brink a few times in the last 6 months, but with no other options I call on my inner resilience and keep putting one foot in front of the other. I have no choice but to be a superwoman and I want to be superwoman, I don't want to miss a day.
I'll think about what she said, but for now I remain hesitant.
Lib x
There’s been so much happening in the last year writing has become my therapy, a catharsis of sorts. I write through my grief, and anxiety, and it helps. It feels like someone out there is listening as the words are no longer stuck within me. As I write I sometimes find some magic or a little meaning in what I’m experiencing. Those pearls of wisdom that life sometimes embeds in a challenge. I need an anchor to get through and the words I write are my tether.
Maybe putting my experiences out into the world will help someone else on a similar path feel less alone. I’m not ready to write too much about my Dad or my Charlie girl yet. That’s too raw for now, I can skim the details but I’m not sure that I can fully express my grief of their loss. But with my friend it’s the slow burn of loss and anticipatory grief. I feel like I have so many different layers of grief happening all at the one time. Sometimes they’re smooshed into one at other times it feels defined. The night I drove home after disposing of the bird it was very defined and I literally felt like I couldn’t breathe.
I can easily type those words but to say them out loud, I would feel like a fraud, like I was making a mountain out of a mole hill and that no one would understand that in that moment I felt the gravity of what was already lost.
Even reading back what I've written above I feel like a fraud, but I know this will pass. When I told my mum the stories of recent events she asked if I was writing it down. I said I was and then she said I could write a book. Well I’ve thought of that and I maybe my ramblings of my experiences as my friends dementia progresses will help someone else. Maybe someone will read my blog and relate the same way I felt seen when I read Patti Davis’ book. I said to mum that I was writing through my stress. But what I’m actually doing is writing through my grief. At some point all I will have are these stories, that are both funny and tragic at the same time.
I tend to write on the fly, if I pour over what I write too much hours will pass. I put perfectionism on the back burner in favour of getting things out of my head and onto the page. What you read here is raw, when I have time I work on what I've written here to refine my thoughts to something that maybe one day will be pieced together into a book. My journey with my friend although not unique is also not very common when you start reading dementia books. They seem to be written either from the perspective of a family member or of a professional care giver, I'm neither. I'm simply the best friend who stepped in to make sure her best mate was ok.
There's a lot that I've written in recent weeks that is yet to see the light of day. May be it will all appear in my book one day, or maybe it will end up being just for me. Where ever it lands it will have helped me purge my thoughts and get me ready for the next day in this journey.
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash
Originally this post was the introduction to 'Apron Strings" on Feb 1st. But I've since realised it is very much a separate post and requires it's own space.
Inevitably at some point dementia wipes the slate clean, sometimes for a few minutes other times longer. All of this is the precursor to the dreaded day that memory is gone for good.
I'd experienced it once before a few months ago when I called in at lunchtime to tell my friend the cleaner was coming. He was terse with me, like I stood before him accused of a wrong doing that neither of us knew was about. I asked him what I'd done wrong and he said he couldn't say anything until the lawyers got there! I replied that I was just there to tell him about the cleaner and left. I left in a flood of tears that he never saw, I was worried that he'd forgotten our friendship and was now seeing me as the devil! It was a shock and a heartbreak combined. The grief of losing my Dad and my dog had left me less resilient.
But I'd forgotten that it passes, I just had to wait for the switch to flip and all would be ok. And it was, I found that out quickly when the cleaner couldn’t work out how to get in and he wasn't answering her. She made me go back there, because she was from a care agency legally, she couldn’t leave until she knew he was safe. I gingerly opened the back door and called out a few times, and he appeared and spoke to me like there was never an issue. I left and cried in relief.
Today I had a phone call where it was clear that the slate hadn't just been wiped, it was momentarily obliterated. I'd been there earlier in the day, I'd taken him a coffee and we'd sat outside talking for a while. A few hours later I get a call all very formal announcing his full name and that he'd been in the house, which he's told is his, for months and no one had been near him. He has no money and he's not even receiving any bills. I said I'd been with him earlier, he replied "well I didn't see you". I said I brought you a cup of coffee. He moved on to say he's not having a go at me. I was in the next town, so I tell him I'm heading home soon and I'll come past and see him and we'll talk. He's happy with that.
Less than 2 minutes later the phone rings again and we have the same conversation. Except this time new information has been added to the situation he's experiencing. I tell him that I'll be there soon and will look into all of it for him. Then we chat about the birds chirping in the back ground.
By the time I got to his house all was well again. I stayed for a while and got him dinner. He was as cheery as he was when I left him in earlier in the day.
Moments like these are stressful, particularly when I'm a distance away. My immediate reaction is to fix it. But often with dementia you have to allow time for these moments to fix themselves.
Tonight, Charlie has been in my thoughts, she is most of the time. But some moments the grief hits harder and I'm transported back to the days around her passing.
A couple of days after we gave Charlie her wings I had to go back to work. One of my colleagues walked in, gave me a hug and said that I did a brave thing...
I've thought about this a few times and tonight I'm pondering the thought that although letting go was brave, opening myself up to love in the first place was also brave.
Which leads me to think that we often don't realise how brave we all truly are. So many things we do in life are brave. It's the moment that you step outside of your comfort zone and do something that has some level of risk attached. When the heart is involved, grief is always the risk or the inevitable end point. The two are inextricably linked.
There is no measure of brave as much as there is no real measure of a lot of things that are unique to an individual based on their own life experience. Which leads me back to my earlier thought that we often don't realise how brave we are. And if we could recognise our own bravery, we could be brave again.
A couple of years ago I had to make some tough decisions that had the potential to significantly affect my life as I knew it. At the end when I looked back, I realised that I could actually do hard things. It's easy to forget that sometimes but it appears that Charlie is giving me a gentle reminder of that tonight.
Charlie taught me a lot in her 16 years, and it appears she still is.
Lib x
