I've been away from my blog for a while...my apologies to anyone who might have dropped in looking for me. I have a new/old job. It's a job I've done before, only in a new place, and with new people. It's a care facility for Alzheimer's patients. Have I mentioned yet today how much I hate this disease! I haven't? Unusual for me..I usually manage to work it into the conversation at least a dozen times a day! It is THE most insiduous, horrific thing I have ever had the occasion to be involved with.
Imagine...every morning when you wake up, it's the day after your only daughter has died...the grief is fresh and heart-rending.
Imagine...you mowed the lawn, played a little foodball with your grandson, and then went upstairs for a little nap...only to wake in a strange place full of people you don't know who keep telling you you "live" here now!
Sound like an episode of "The Twilight Zone"? Well, it is. But for the people I work with every day, it's their reality. And they have no idea how they got there, or how to get out! Imagine!
No wonder then that they imprint and cling to people like me...people who are there EVERY day..when you're that scared and that confused, you hang onto every, any thing you see that you remember. For my friends, that's someone or something they see every day!
I have no wish here to belittle, denegrate or accuse. I am a 1st hand observer of what this disease does...to people, to families, to friends, to those who care. My wish here is only, maybe for my own sake, to spit out, and I do mean spit, my disgust, my horror, and my hatred for what I consider to be the most heinious disease we've ever fought. Just like the "smart" bombs, it leaves the "buildings" unharmed, but destroys all of the humanity, the wonderful humans who once lived and thought and loved there. My God, what a horror! Nothing but empty "buildings".
So...here is my "Top 10 List of Things I Hate Most About Alzheimer's Disease"
#10. It leaves empty "buildings".
#9. It takes away wonderful, beautiful people...people who still had things to do, something to do, and to teach.
#8 It takes those people away from their families, people who loved them before they understood they still had something to do...something to teach.
#7 It puts those people through a daily hell not of their own making.
#6. It's hearing someone say, "They used to BE someone!" They are STILL someone...just someone different!
#5 It's a hell their families and loved ones have to watch, and can't help them with.
#4 It's seeing the families feel quilty for for not being able to help. You can't. It's not your fault.
#3 Seeing the hurt look in a family member's eye when their "loved" one clings to me, and doesn't remember who you are.
#2 It's knowing, it will never "get better"...that that wonderful person is gone forever, even tho they're sitting right in front of you.
And the #1 reason I hate this disease? Is having to watch it, praying every night that someone like me will be there if one day I wake up from my nap....
Imagine!
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Distractions
I have been totally remiss with my blog. There have been distractions. The smell of pine trees in the mountains...the smell of Lilacs in the city...the aching of muscles 20 years past doing what I ask of them every day. Distactions. The smell of my Colorado waking up for yet another year of living. The watching for the color of the soil to change, letting you know you've given this or that plant enough. The difference between the smell of wet and dry soil. The feeling that there is still...still something you should be out there doing, that you haven't done yet! And Spring is the time to find it!!
The knowledge that you are past what you always thought you were capable of, and haven't gotten there yet comes to mind. Spring makes you believe you can still get there. And so ,tired and sore, you rise to it's call , and more this time of year than any other, to prove you can. No matter your age, no matter your abilities...you go out there to prove you "still can".
I wish that was a "guy thing"...that they were the only ones who felt it neccessary to go out, "prove" they still have a reason for taking up space and air on this planet that is losing both at a rapid rate. Women have that drive too, to feel "productive". And when they can't anymore, in the "true" sense of the world, they try to hold their own, any way they can.
All of this is about Mother's Day I guess. I guess I've finally gotten around to giving "my take" on this holiday. Holiday. Like we have to designate a day to doing what is the most inevitable function we have in this life. We are born to bear...we are born to care for what we bear until they push us away and can do for themselves. A mother bear raises her young knowing, working toward the day her young will not need her any more. Much the same with most species who have been here longer than us! Humans are the only species on the planet who "keep" their young with them into adult hood!
I was a selfish Mother...I raised my children as quick as I could...I knew next year, there would be another "litter"...in my case another set of problems that would require my attention. I take no pride in that. I did what, knowing myself, I had to do.
A bear will give all her attention to the cub who needs it most. It knows which cub will survive on it's own and which one needs help.
They resent me for it now. I'd say hate, but that's a strong word...even a full grown male bear will stop short of killing it's mother in the wild, even over a fresh kill. Unless it's hungry...for food, or attention, or the revenge for the attention it never thought it got.
We as parents raise our children in flawed ways...ways flawed by our memories of how we were raise, of lessons learned by our own experiences, of our own egotistical beliefs. None of us can EVER, will NEVER be able to see how very right and wrong we were until our children's children are as old as we are now. And then, it will be too late..because all of that wonderful knowledge will be considered as nothing more than "old shit" from "old people". It will be dissmissed, dissregarded, and forgotten. OH, the things that have been forgotten! The stories of our families...the recipies I couldn't find...the times I didn't listen when Gramma wanted to talk.
So as a Mother, to my children I say, listen. Even when I'm wrong. I'm not always wrong. And I'm never wrong for the wrong reasons...most of what I've told you in my life, and your's, was what I believed, and for the right reasons. I believed it, and thought it would help you. I got a lot of it from your Gramma, and her from hers....
I love you both my darlings.
The knowledge that you are past what you always thought you were capable of, and haven't gotten there yet comes to mind. Spring makes you believe you can still get there. And so ,tired and sore, you rise to it's call , and more this time of year than any other, to prove you can. No matter your age, no matter your abilities...you go out there to prove you "still can".
I wish that was a "guy thing"...that they were the only ones who felt it neccessary to go out, "prove" they still have a reason for taking up space and air on this planet that is losing both at a rapid rate. Women have that drive too, to feel "productive". And when they can't anymore, in the "true" sense of the world, they try to hold their own, any way they can.
All of this is about Mother's Day I guess. I guess I've finally gotten around to giving "my take" on this holiday. Holiday. Like we have to designate a day to doing what is the most inevitable function we have in this life. We are born to bear...we are born to care for what we bear until they push us away and can do for themselves. A mother bear raises her young knowing, working toward the day her young will not need her any more. Much the same with most species who have been here longer than us! Humans are the only species on the planet who "keep" their young with them into adult hood!
I was a selfish Mother...I raised my children as quick as I could...I knew next year, there would be another "litter"...in my case another set of problems that would require my attention. I take no pride in that. I did what, knowing myself, I had to do.
A bear will give all her attention to the cub who needs it most. It knows which cub will survive on it's own and which one needs help.
They resent me for it now. I'd say hate, but that's a strong word...even a full grown male bear will stop short of killing it's mother in the wild, even over a fresh kill. Unless it's hungry...for food, or attention, or the revenge for the attention it never thought it got.
We as parents raise our children in flawed ways...ways flawed by our memories of how we were raise, of lessons learned by our own experiences, of our own egotistical beliefs. None of us can EVER, will NEVER be able to see how very right and wrong we were until our children's children are as old as we are now. And then, it will be too late..because all of that wonderful knowledge will be considered as nothing more than "old shit" from "old people". It will be dissmissed, dissregarded, and forgotten. OH, the things that have been forgotten! The stories of our families...the recipies I couldn't find...the times I didn't listen when Gramma wanted to talk.
So as a Mother, to my children I say, listen. Even when I'm wrong. I'm not always wrong. And I'm never wrong for the wrong reasons...most of what I've told you in my life, and your's, was what I believed, and for the right reasons. I believed it, and thought it would help you. I got a lot of it from your Gramma, and her from hers....
I love you both my darlings.
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