Two Things Caretakers Need to Remember

by Mare @ ADVENTURES IN THE BALLPARK 

I had a rough evening with Mom today.  She's 94 and has some dementia, and I help her shower, and tonight, she wasn't very happy.  She didn't like something I bought her, she was impatient with the fact that I've not connected with her physical therapist yet (we keep missing each other), she kept at me about helping her with a letter she's been writing, and she didn't like the towel I used to help her dry off.

On the mile-drive home from my parents' ALF, I felt the pressure of tears. I've been helping my parents (Dad is 91) for five years, and I've watched them gradually decline.  Every month or so, they have a medical issue, or a further slip in mental acuity. Overall, I'm able to cope, but once in awhile...it hits me that these are not the parents I grew up with.  Their lives have become very small.  Their memories are short, their complaints are close to the surface.  They are adamant that they can do everything they used to do, but they really can't.  I am usually the bad guy, the one who sets the boundaries, says no, but behind the scenes, makes sure they are OK. 

I am a caretaker.  I never thought I'd be doing this, but here I am.  I love my parents, and God sustains me.  I'm not complaining.  I'm just realizing that as we age and our awareness/abilities disappear, we are left with what seems to be simply the flesh.  And the flesh is weak and tired and grumpy.

My parents were never like this before.  They are dedicated Christians who raised four children and buried a son when he was 23.  They worked in the church tirelessly all of their adult lives. They opened their home to friends and strangers alike.  Any loving kindness I have ever extended, I learned from them.

The Mom I helped tonight is not the Mom who raised me and became a friend/spiritual guide to me.  But, it's not her intention to be testy; her brain is simply deteriorating. It's wearing down and wearing out, and frequently, misfiring.  This is what the flesh does.  It was never meant to be permanent.  It's here for awhile, and then it turns to dust.  It helps to remember this.

I will meet the spirit of my Mom again one day, when we are both gone from this life.  I believe we will be reunited in heaven, whatever form that takes.  The flesh will be a thing of the past, and we will be at peace.  It helps to remember this too.

On Mothering: Ma Vie En Rose (-Colored Glasses)

by Merry Gordon

I used to travel. That was before the kids (these days, just passing the Asian food section at the grocery store seems exotic). But back then, I had overheard enough wistful adult conversations about wasted youth to know I’d better take on the big, romantic world long before the grim reality of mortgage payments and stretch marks set in. By 16, I was hoarding copies of Travel + Leisure under my bed; by 18, my bags were packed.

My first destination?

PARIS.

Everyone comes to Paris with expectations, but mine were absurdly naïve. My France was a hodgepodge of fashion spreads in Elle, a Renoir pocket calendar and the Madeline books—oh, and that mildly dirty nursery rhyme involving naked dancing ladies and a hole in the wall. In the Paris I imagined, everyone wore berets and Dior and Chanel No. 5 and ate croissants in corner bistros. Paris was sexy, très chic. I stepped off the tour bus and took in my first view of the city.

It wasn’t the Eiffel Tower.

It wasn’t lovers kissing in a boat on the Seine.

 It was a naked man urinating into a cardboard box on a litter-strewn curbside.

Très chic, indeed.

Nearly everything about Paris echoed my first let-down. The Eiffel Tower was overpriced and crowded, the bread was stale, and I got insulted by a trio of sweaty French boys on the Champs-Élysées (at least I think I did—while I’m not exactly sure what they said, some gestures are probably universal). The Mona Lisa was small, and even a twilight cruise down the Seine was interrupted by a mizzling rain and Eurotrash techno thumping from the open door of a club.

I left disappointed, but eventually I got over Paris.

I got over myself a little too. I grew up, got married. My priorities changed. By 25, I was hoarding copies of Baby Talk under my bed; by 27, I was exhausted on a delivery table waiting to hear my newborn daughter’s first cry.

The nurse beamed down at me. “Congratulations! You’re a mommy!”

But once she handed me the discharge papers, it was like Paris all over again.

Expecting to jump right out of my hospital gown and back into my size five Calvin Kleins, I was shocked to find myself still shuffling around the house in my husband’s sweats four weeks postpartum. Having been assured by glossy La Leche League pamphlets that breastfeeding was both serene and natural, I was unprepared for round-the-clock feeds (involving six pillows and another pair of hands just to get the position right) and more howling on my part than on my daughter’s. And that whole Gerber baby thing? After a vacuum delivery, my precious newborn looked more alien than adorable. How was I supposed to fall in love with this lump of flesh that only had the capacity to scream, poop and projectile vomit?

But I did.

It started small. One particularly desperate night, I sang Pink Floyd because I’d run out of lullabies. About halfway through “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” I felt that little head finally snuggle into my shoulder and my universe shifted. All those books and blogs, and nothing could have prepared me for the reality of parenting:  one moment you’re a chorus away from tipping the kiddo’s pacifier in Benadryl, and the next moment a milky sigh and the clutch of a tiny finger elevate you to a zen-like understanding of the cosmos. Powerful stuff, that.

I finally got it. It wasn’t like American Baby promised—I’d been up since 2 A.M., I couldn’t remember the last shower I took, and most of the pillow talk between my husband and I that week had involved our daughter’s stool consistency—but the moment was real and potent and entirely untranslatable in the airbrushed perfection of parenting magazines.

Because of my experiences as a mom, I think of Paris differently now. I was so obsessed with the Travel + Leisure version of the city that I got hung up on a couple of stale croissants; I should have been paying attention to the gypsy guitar player scattering those crusty remnants to the pigeons and singing “Hotel California” in broken English. And maybe I got harassed by a Gallic Casanova or two, but one of them did bear a passing resemblance to Johnny Depp. I burnt my finger during sightseeing? It was on a prayer candle I lit in some tiny, off-the-beaten-path medieval chapel I had ducked into to escape the drizzle. How could I not have noticed the beauty in that?

Parenting is just like Paris, all a thousand tiny unexpected moments that are imperfectly perfect—sometimes only in retrospect.

Every time I try to explain this to one of my non-parent friends, I feel a bit bad—not in a condescending way, but in a way that recognizes the inadequacy of trying to describe the indescribable. Wait a sec. So it’s not like the magazines? There’s screaming, and spit up, and sleep deprivation-induced hallucinations, and you’re telling me this is a good thing? That you’d go back and do it all over again?

Oui. 

Beating the Biography Blues

What does one get for the father that has everything?   I’m serious, he really has everything.  Looking for a 57/83 inch drill bit?  Yep, he’s got it.  How about a nice copy of the June, 1985 edition of National Geographic.  Yeppers!  A left-handed socket wrench only for fixing blenders.  Oh, yes…that too. 

            So, getting something at Christmas or birthdays for a man in his 80s that is a card-carrying member of the ‘Hoarders Gold Club’ has been a challenge.  I want to honor my father, but not empower the man to add to his stash.  My mother has threatened arson more than once.

            It occurred to me that people in my father’s age bracket are focused on legacy building; financial legacy, Church service legacy, and of course, personal history legacy.  And it was in this last category that I chose to focus my efforts.  I’m so glad that I did because what came out of the experience of recording, transcribing and writing what would someday be a nice softcover family ‘must read’ (along with the blues associated with some things not going so smoothly) have been priceless for me as well as my family.

            Along the way, I’ve learned a few lessons that I would like to share about writing a person’s biography.  It does not matter if the person you are writing about is a relative or just an acquaintance, the methods are still the same:

1.     Before you do anything, find your objective center.  To retell the life, the whole life, of an individual accurately and fairly, you must approach the project as if it were a paid job assignment.  Kicking back and sharing a few laughs and memories is nice, but it lacks strategy and organization.  If you are interviewing and writing about a close family member and you think you might become overly emotional (sadness, gratitude, anger, joy, etc.) then make a list of those topics that need to be dealt with separate from the biography process. 

2.     Create your universe.  In other words, take the time to outline the direction that the interview will take.  Try to strike a balance of chronological continuity without getting bogged down in the details too soon.  You can always add sub-topical areas as desired after the initial interview. 

3.     When you and the subject are ready, arrange a meeting time.  Set a limit of an hour for the first meeting, followed by more at later times.  This will allow you to demonstrate to your subject that you are interviewing them with a clear plan and that it won’t be an endless meeting.  Most adults, even relatives, have a limited attention span. 

4.     During the interview, tell the person what topic you are about to question them about.  Then, ask open-ended questions.  Make sure the recording device you are using is unobtrusive; it can stress the subject when they see it in front of them.  Do NOT take notes; the subject will feel obliged to let you catch up on your scribblings, which will often break their train of thought.

5.     After transcribing the recordings, edit the first script for writing conventions and send a copy to the subject.  It may seem odd to edit so soon, but you don’t want the subject to fret about these annoyances.

6.     Do a quick genealogy of family and friends.  Get the contact information of these individuals.  Create a document in which your subject gives authorization for any relative or friend to share personal information with you, the interviewer.  Sometimes, relatives and friends are reluctant to be candid unless they have the subject’s blessing to do so. 

7.     Once a complete interview has been conducted and transcribed, read over the script several times.  Glaring questions or topic areas that need deeper exploration should be identified.  Send these questions to the subject prior to the ‘details interview’, along with a current copy of the script.  This will give the subject time to do a nice memory jog on what they've already said and hopefully spark deeper memories that could prove invaluable to the overall biography.  Then, make another interview appointment, but do not set a time limit.  At this meeting, it’s time to ask the hard questions and press the subject a bit.  It’s at this point that my questions would be more like: ‘How did that make you feel?’ or ‘What do you wish you had done differently in that awkward situation?’ Remember, if you still have unanswered questions when reading the biography, then so will everyone else that reads it.  You want to close as many open-ends as possible.

8.     Edit several times and get a ‘buddy reader’ to give it a once over.

9.     Believe it or not, now comes the hardest part of the whole biography process:  Obtaining photographs.  Sometimes, getting people to find pics of their early life can be a difficult challenge.  You might want to prompt what kind of pictures you are wanting so the person doesn't get bogged down going through endless boxes or albums and trying to decide which pictures they think you might want.  Of course, their opinion plays an important part.

10.  Assemble and self-publish.  There are numerous self-publishing websites  to choose from:  Lulu is very popular, as is Create Space and Completely Novel.

            This 10-step process may seem tedious, but it works.  If you write a biography using these steps (or your own amalgamation) you’ll actually find yourself having fun and getting the creative release we authors are all hooked on. 

            Back to my father’s biography.  I've really enjoyed the process, bumps in the road notwithstanding.  My father rolled out a story one day that nobody in the family had ever heard.  Apparently, he and a teenage buddy hopped a train from Arizona to Los Angeles so that they could ‘go to the beach’.  They nearly died of dehydration as they crossed the brutal desert and didn't count on the truancy officer (For the more youthful MMW among us, a truancy officer was a type of law enforcement officer that patrolled the neighborhoods during the school day looking for kids who were ditching school.) arresting them.  So apparently, the beloved patriarch of our family was a youthful jailbird.

            The hardest part of this process was the accumulation of photographs.  There have been numerous hurdles: The house fire of 1948 destroyed a lot of them; the box that has some pics is out in the hot shed;  or worse, ‘I don’t know where some of the photographs are’.  It’s made me get creative and ‘think outside the box’ in order to get what I believe will help make a great biography to honor a great man.