She’s not heavy, she’s my mother: How do I deal with the stress of Mom’s or Dad’s increasing needs?

Copyright © 2011, Douglas D. Germann, Sr., Professional Corporation.
574/291-0022, fax 574/291-0024, PO Box 2796, South Bend, IN 46680-2796

No one of us has all the answers to this quandary. Life is lived in conversation, is given breath when we impart the best parts of ourselves to one another. On this page we can provide a collecting place for our collective wisdom, fears, joys, and workarounds. Please respond and share with us what works for you.

Here are some ideas that others have shared with me (I will add to these as time goes on, so check the list for new items):

  • “The people here cannot have a bad week. They are some of the few people on earth who truly live in the now.” This is what the administrator of a nursing home devoted to Alzheimer’s people told me a few weeks ago.

The job, he told me, was to meet them where they were and not try to correct them nor bring them “truth.” Rather, we need to live, for the time we are with Dad. in his truth. Remember, Dad’s brain has physically shrunk. He does not remember that Mom died, and he is physically unable to remember what you told him a minute ago.

So when you re-mind him that Mom died 5 years ago, you put him through his grief again.

Better to be kind, to be loving, than to try to bring him to your truth.

  • “My Mom has all the same emotions and the same intensity of emotions as any of us; she just has them faster and shorter. I have learned to cry and laugh with her. Five minutes later it is all forgotten.” A friend from northern California shared this with me.

“Mom told me the other day ‘Know what I miss about being in this nursing home? I cannot snuggle with my honey.’”

  • What if we worked out with a friend to visit each other’s Moms in the nursing home? We did not know them before and do not have the desire to restore them to who they once were: we can meet them as they are today.

This might also help with the issue of distance—we can know that a caring someone is companioning Mom.

  • In conferences, people tell me there are compensations for those hours and months they spent with Dad. Enjoy who they are this moment. Get to know them–now–for the first time.
  • A friend took her Mother on a trip to Mom’s hometown–here’s where our home stood–there’s where Jimmy took me to the prom–here’s where my parents are buried. It was Mom’s idea, after the daughter suggested a trip to anywhere Mom wanted to go.
  • Your own journaling. Think journaling will take too much time or you were never one for that? Could you make lists of things Mom or Dad love, things they did, questions to ask? Could you write a letter (or an email) to Mom or Dad? Check out The New Diary, by Tristine Rainer.

:- Doug

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What is the most loving way to practice Elder Caring Law?

What do you think is the most loving way to practice Elder Caring Law?

What can we do to be open, imaginative, caring, poetic, whole-making and loving for your family? Please submit your responses and comments below.

Thanks!

:- Doug.

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RAG man

I’m a RAG man. Reaching Across Generations.

:- Doug.

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A different accent

Reach across generations, meet in the middle, expressly to make us more human: and each generation says “human” with a different accent!

:- Doug.

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Different each generation

We reach across the generations, they reach across to us. Meeting, we can purposely make humanity more human. The fun challenge is that human will mean something different to each generation.

:- Doug.

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Dream more human

My dream is to make humanity more human by generations reaching purposely to one another.

:- Doug.

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ages with purpose

When we reach across the ages with purpose, we affect our humanicity.

:- Doug.

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Hand across

Hand in hand, across generations.

:- Doug.

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Tiny bit better humanity

I’m reaching across ages for a tiny bit better humanity. for finding our better humanity.

:- Doug.

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You don’t exist

Maybe to them you don’t exist.

:- Doug.

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Reaching for one another

The generations are reaching for one another even now.

:- Doug.

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Continually trying something new

Why continually trying something new is the meaning of history, perhaps humanity.

:- Doug.

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an example of how

As we in this course meet, however we “meet,” we are an example of how humans can reach across to one another. How then?

:- Doug.

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to turn its head

I am carried along by an untamed idea; I must get on this beast and ride and try to turn its head to good.

:- Doug.

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By exploding

How do ideas travel? They jump, skip, hide, explode, hibernate. . . .

:- Doug.

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Reaching across

We conduct an experiment in reaching across generational edges to see how we might advance humanity.

:- Doug.

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Write off people

Before you write off the people in the distance, come and give me a hand. Then you may do as you like.

:- Doug.

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Connections to be made

There are connections to be made: between and among those who have gone before and those coming soon and us too. There are connections to be made and found, from which others can grow humanity in ways we cannot foreshadow. Our duty is here. Feel the nibble on this line.

:- Doug.

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Possible peoples

We evoke a study in rolling, folding, opening of people. A study in possible peoples.

:- Doug.

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