Tag Archives: Minnesota Author

Memories Are Made Of This

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Most of my readers are aware of the huge downsizing I’ve had to go through this year. It wasn’t exactly my choice, though I’d been saying for years it had to happen.

If you recall last March I struggled with packing up our four-bedroom home and reducing my stuff to a two-bedroom apartment. Then I forced myself to part with more for a move to a one- bedroom apartment. My heart had to take a few more jolts to let go of my storage space conglomeration, and because I was moving again to smaller one-bedroom I had to eagle eye what I had left.

I think Marie Condo, the organizer guru,was on to something when she said, “Keep only things that speak to your heart.” The first move I found too many things that spoke to my heart such as my first doll, my first teddy bear, and mementoes from my children. With gritted teeth and help from a friend I let many of them go.

By the third move I was so tired I let things walk out the door with friends and strangers.

Yesterday I needed a large vase and tore through my cupboards looking for my favorite blue vase my husband and I received for a wedding present all those years ago. I realized it was one of the items that probably ended up in a thrift shop somewhere.

As much as I miss some of my “stuff” , and at times feel sad about it, I believe I feel freer now. I don’t spend my time rearranging or looking or taking care of endless objects that I thought meant a great deal to me. In reality they were just objects, some left from an era of family that had no meaning to me, but yet guilt wouldn’t let me part with them because they were family relics. Relics kept because they had meaning to past family members but escaped my adoration.

It’s exciting to fill my space with fun eclectic finds all new to me which speak to my heart as Marie Kondo advised. Yet, I find the few things I have kept from the past, whether I realized it or not, speak to my heart too.

From the pictures on my walls to the knickknacks gracing my tables when I see them they each have a memory of someone special in my life.

One memory may be strange but unique. The time of Lent and Easter is a reminder of not only the season for me, but of my mom. Every Easter season, on Palm Sunday we received palms. They were the tall, willowy ones. My mom would keep hers and braid it. She was very good at the art, and then she would put it n a vase where we could see it. I never asked why, or if I did, in my young age, I never paid attention to the answer. Doing my research I found the palms symbolize the warding off of evil and are supposed to be burned the following year on Ash Wednesday. The Palms having been blessed, should only be burned and buried, and it also is an old tradition to burn the blessed branches before natural disasters asking God to avert or lessen the coming disaster.

I found a braided palm when I packed up my mom’s house over twenty years ago. I remember the final years she lived in her home, it sitting in a vase in the window. I may not be Catholic anymore but the roots run deep,and I knew you didn’t throw the palm away. There was something about it that touched my heart knowing my mom’s love of her religion, and what the palm symbolized to her. I could see her braiding it with care. I kept it. It sat on my windowsill in a vase reminding me of her.

Fast forward to all of these moves. I took a little heat from people that I wouldn’t let go of that braided palm. They didn’t understand my stubbornness. I carefully packed it and unpacked it all three times. It’s brittleness making it a challenge to move so it didn’t disintegrate in the packing. Today it sits in another vase in my bedroom reminding me this Easter Season of the journey to the cross and also of the past, and the faith my mom had. And…of course her talent weaving and braiding those palms.

We pare down, let go of our past lives symbolized by the stuff we have saved, hoarded, hid only to bring out to see what was in the box and always feel guilty because our family chides us about all we keep. Yet, somewhere in the muddle of the junk and the regrets of keeping so much are the memories that are attached, because there are mementos which melt our hearts each time we look at them. They help us remember who we are, where we came from and what matters. Those are the items we need to keep to help us stay attached to our roots. The ones we have to ponder deeply, hold to our hearts and ask ourselves how deeply they speak to our heart and why.

Someday I will burn the braided palm. Or perhaps my family will in my last days. Maybe I’ll be surprised and it will be passed on down the family for as long as it will hold together to remind them of God’s love, His sacrifice of His son and the roots that are deep into our life called family.

Neighborhoods Have Rhythm

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Neighborhoods have a rhythm. Most of us don’t realize it because we get comfortable as we are part of the process.

We have been residents of this neighborhood for thirty years. There is comfort in knowing at a certain time garage doors will open across the street, one at a time around the same hour, and our neighbors will pull out of the garage separately to go their own way for coffee, coming back an hour later.

There is comfort in knowing what time our neighbors on the other side pull out of their place to go to work. We worry if we don’t see it or their cars are in the driveway at the wrong times.

There is comfort knowing another neighbor pulls into his garage after a night of work getting home safely.

Without being nosy it is just the rhythm of the everyday life of those we know and love.

Soon we will be elsewhere, getting used to another way of life and I will miss the things that give me comfort in our neighborhood. We watch out for one another without being overly invested in each others lives.

A few years ago I got a call from a neighbor wondering if we were home. There was a strange man walking around our house and they wanted to know if they should go out and see what he was doing. Just recently a neighbor contacted me about a strange car at the other neighbors. Usually this time of day they were gone. Did we need to be concerned because a stranger got into their garage?

Who would have thought ordinary comings and goings would bring me sadness. As I sit here this morning and watch the normal meanderings of my neighbors I am thankful for these neighbors, their friendship and their caring. Living in a new place with a new window in a new neighborhood, I will view new scenery but at the same time I will imagine the images of my past home; the garage doors opening, the neighbor’s leaving for their jobs and the neighbor home safely from his travels. I will be in a new space but the space in my heart reserved for these people that have shared our lives and our neighborhood spaces will always be there, always remembering the friendship, the kindness and the caring. Excuse me if that brings a little tear to my eye.

Appreciate the normal hum of your neighborhood. Take time to breathe it in and appreciate the people that are part of that. They may contribute unknowingly to make your life richer.

“When one neighbor helps another, we strengthen our communities.”

Jennifer Pahlka

I’m Not Okay! I Am But I’m Not.

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Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others’ faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty.
Appear as you are. Be as you appear.

Rumi

Photo by Jan Tancar on Pexels.com

I would guess my title is confusing. I haven’t written much about caregivers but I suspect there is so much they are not saying.

I’m not a stranger to working with someone whose memory is failing them. Being an only child I was the one to see that my mom got the care she needed. She was not very accepting of this care and didn’t like me very much until her last years.

My mother-in-law also had memory loss issues. My sister-in-law was the one that alerted us to the fact and so we tried to help with our mother and mother-in-laws care.

My sister-in-law, after taking care of her mother, also needed care and her husband and family stepped up and loved her as she was. Sadly we did not step up as much as we could have. We were one of those people who weren’t sure what to do so we stayed away, much to our regret now that we are wiser. I also think we were tired from my mom and my mother-in-law’s situation and deaths, and our way of coping was to stay away rather then to watch another family member struggle. We were not okay though we appeared to be.

My brother-in-law went from being a very capable person to one that could not navigate life on his own. My sister-in-law, his caretaker, tried to take care of him but she got tired and as a result, had a hard time making decisions about their life.

We tried to help in all of these situations. We were aware but we didn’t want to overstep, although occasionally we did, because we saw how tired their caregivers got and so we helped make some decisions.

The difference between that and my caregiving duties now is that for us or me, it wasn’t 24/7. I could leave the situation but in each instance, those family members that were caregivers never complained and would always say they were okay. It’s like a shame to admit we can’t always handle things on our own when we are caregivers. We become tired. Our decision-making is occasionally made out of tiredness because we can’t think about one more thing. Reaching out to others seems like a weakness and there is the fact that family and friends do not always know what to do or they feel uncomfortable.

There is also the guilt if we have to put a loved one in a facility where someone else cares for them. The reality I have seen is that tired caregivers aren’t always the best people to care for the people they love. A wife goes from being a wife to being caught up in the chores of making meals, juggling doctor appointments, seeing the house is safe and keeping their place of living clean. They become a mother not a wife. The world for both of them becomes lonely.

We are blessed as when we reached out we have been receiving wonderful support. My children help when they can and my daughter saw that I was too tired to find a place to live where things would be easier for us. She took charge and that was what I needed for us to make a move. It was hard to trust that job to another person, even my daughter.

Though my kids are supportive they haven’t been able to be here much because of distance and busy schedules. Appearances short term can be deceiving, hiding from our family the reality of what is actually happening on an hour to hour or daily basis. Family might think they know what we are going through but unless they spend days with us, they don’t, just like I didn’t get the full picture with all the people in our family that have had this issue before us. I didn’t live it all day and all night on my own like they did. It is mind-blowing and a wearing, bone-tiring job. There I said it. It is tiring.

I know my kids think I complain too much. I vent to them and I probably shouldn’t, and they give the only response they know how to give and most of the time that is: “It’s going to be alright.” And it is,and I don’t know what I expect them to say at that moment.

I think the gist of what I am saying in this long diatribe is this: I try to be positive and most days it works. I suspect that is true for most caregivers because we know what our loved one is going through is much worse. But there are days when we just want to shout to the rooftops “I am not okay.” But we don’t because of the response we get from others. We need our loved ones to understand we need for them to let us to not be okay for a moment, an hour, a day, so we can pull ourselves back up and go on with all the details our life now entails that we don’t want to do. Let us have those times and don’t feel uncomfortable when we feel that way. It will pass. We just may need to express it out loud. We’re not looking for sympathy we need to let it out and not bottle up unhealthy feelings.

I had a recent phone conversation with a person that has taken care of their loved one for a long time. Their children want them to move to somewhere where there is more help. The kids have given them brochures, telephone numbers etc. to no avail. The children have given up and said there is nothing more they can do and have resigned themselves that this is not going to end well.

In talking to their person recently, that is the caregiver, I said, “You’re just too tired to make any of these decisions, aren’t you? The thought of finding a place to move and then actually moving plus trying to tell your loved one is overwhelming.” They broke down and said, “Yes.” So the children and the parents are at an impasse because the children don’t understand this and the parent can’t communicate it. I imagine there are many scenarios like that.

If you’re reading this, take away from it what you want. I’ve found help through an Interfaith Caregiver’s group in my county and the VA , because my loved one is a Veteran. There are also county services you might qualify for and if you’re a Senior Citizen, the Senior Link Line is a great resource too. I know you’re tired, but reaching out to one of these might bring you some respite.

Don’t forget bout family and friends. They can’t help if they don’t know. Our kids, our extended family and friends, plus these groups have kept us going. God brings blessings when our tears fall. It’s okay to not be okay, and don’t let anyone tell you any different.

Minnesota Senior Link Line

Interfaith Caregiver’s

Alzheimer’s

Some of these are Minnesota Link’s but most states have their own resources.