As most of you know, my mom is in a nursing home with Alzheimer's where she has been declining for the past four and a half years. She is like an infant: she needs someone to feed her, bathe her, brush her teeth.
Last week, there were two cases of corona in her nursing home wing, and one of her healthcare providers tested positive. My mom had tested negative earlier in the week, but she probably didn't have enough of the active virus in her system at the time. I was relieved when she tested negative earlier in the week, but as one of my friends said "That can just got kicked down the road." Meaning, if corona doesn't kill her now, something else will later. Which is true. We all have to die of something.
Today in my recovery group, the conversation was around "What are you doing to keep you head above water during this time?"
This morning I woke up and I was back to my old pattern: obsessing and distraction. Instead of wondering if my mom was going to die, I started to stress that everyone in my company was going to get a 20% pay cut. They are forcing us to take a vacation day every Friday until further notice. I am not sure what is going to happen when we all run out of vacation days, especially since most of us don't accrue one vacation day a week. The company that owns my division is highly leveraged and I am guessing that when employees run out of vacation days, the parent company might just cut pay by twenty percent instead of laying people off. We are an essential service and we run very lean. It might be easier to cut everyone's pay instead of laying 20% of the people off. If they did that, who would do the work? I was going to look up the company's financial statement and write a "Fuck you" letter to the CEO and the Board of Directors for their irresponsibility, if in fact any of this is true. Maybe I should ask my dad or my friend Carla to look at their financial statements with me...
Which is when I realized I was spinning.
My old pattern was distract and obsess, or obsess and distract, and then connect with a friend to complain how awful my life is. Instead of pondering the mortality of my mother, I worried about my paycheck.
My mom isn't ill yet, but we have to make plans for what happens if she does. My mom has a living will and is DNR -- do not resuscitate. A nurse called my dad and asked him what he wants to do if my mom becomes ill: should they send her to the hospital?
My dad said yes, please send my mother to the hospital if needed should she become ill.
My first thought was "Noooooo! Do not send her to the hospital!" There was no real reason--it was just a gut reaction. I didn't say anything to my dad. I paused, and then called my Aunt Pat.
"Your father is going to do what he is going to do," she said. She wasn't being sarcastic or mean. She was wise.
Back to the question posed at my recovery group: How have I been keeping my head above water?
Pray
Meditate
Connect
------------
Repeat
I heard that prayer is asking God for help. Meditating is listening for the answer. Connecting is a way of tapping into someone else's higher power. Or maybe they are tapping into mine...
I thought about my mom as I was going to sleep. In the morning, I woke up and figured out why I didn't want my mom to go to the hospital. When she first moved to the nursing home, she was very agitated and afraid. She didn't know where she was or why she was the there. The unfamiliar scared her, and with her short-term memory loss, she didn't remember why she there. Would my mom be better off declining in a familiar place with people she knows?
I would tell my dad my fears, and let the rest belong to him. I need to honor that they have been married for more than fifty years. I can't imagine my mom dying alone, nor can I imagine what my father is feeling not being with her as she dies.
Today after my meeting, I took a four hour nap. I crashed. After that, I sat on my balcony with my dog and did nothing. I talked to Claire-Adele for a few minutes to tell her the news. I talked to my dad for a few minutes. It was so quiet. No noise from cars or planes or people or birds. I sunbathed and watched the smallest ants I've ever seen crawl up and down my bamboo. What is it going to mean when my mother dies?
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