Back Home, at Home
Sometimes coming back home is a huge battle. For us it was just a readjustment of appointments and then a long car ride. Judge and Annie forgave us right away. Annie let herself be petted. A lot! Judge walked around the woods behind the house with us, showing his coming when called skills like a show dog. We moved our things in and up. Mom’s caregiver had a divine meal waiting for us.
We learned what home needs from caring for Mom and Dad. There is all the physical stuff, wide doors, walk-in shower, wheel chair access. There was the people stuff, caregivers with skills and intelligence and love.
Great caregivers are as skilled as an anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist takes over the monitoring of heart and breathing for the sedated patient. The caregiver oversees, manages, encourages, the body routines of her person. How is the sleep? Is there enough turning? Enough liquids? Bathing? Toileting? With a great caregiver, every day is a spa day, a trip to the dressmaker’s atelier, a grand tour, tea in the garden, jokes, cooking together, movies, reading the paper together. It looks effortless, two people dancing, one person Nureyev, twirling the ballerina. The movement called ‘transferring’ should have a name as filled with romance as the ‘plié.’ How about ‘remplacer?’or ‘deplacer?’ A day filled with laughter and music, quiet, conversation so natural sounding except the playwright is writing and speaking for both people.
Mom has 4 great caregivers. Their styles could not be more different. With one Mom rides up town like a queen in her wheelchair. They go into Caves, the convenience store, and get an ice cream sandwich. With another it is Rick Steves and vicarious international travel, with the third, it is concert music, with the fourth it is Polish cooking channels.
When all the caregiving is bundled up in 1 person, daughter, or sister, or brother or husband or wife it is a lot tougher, and sometimes flirts dangerously with the impossible. At the viewing last night I talked with the wife of an old friend. She is an elegant woman, carefully dressed with eye shadow and mascara that show off her big limpid eyes to perfection. She uses her cane with grace, talking, gesturing, moving, the cane taking her weight, and then a bit of a sway. The eyes were very limpid last night. She had just brought my friend home from the rehabilitation center after a broken hip. “I brought him home” she said. One person who had to struggle to get her own ‘remplacer’ right, practicing in front of a drill sergeant, dance master, rehab therapist. And now she has a partner with his struggle.
The viewing was wonderful. Pictures of a young sailor, so handsome, really movie star handsome! And family. And friends, lots of friends. And Dick, in his coffin looking like he always did. That’s a skill. Except they couldn’t capture him in movement. He was always in movement, always on his feet. “I kept him home. He died at home. It’s where he wanted to be,” his daughter said. A simple sentence, but nothing simple about the act. The whole house is breathing, suffering, agonizing with the one person. The pain killers, the bath-rooming, the comforting, except that nobody provides the magic wand and a magic wand is the only thing that will really work.
We walked up to the funeral home with my friend Faith. I call her Faith because she was faithful to her parents’ dream to keep her brothers at home. 2 boys whose early development had the medical pundits lecturing about institutionalization. Her parents examined that option but declined. Home the brothers stayed, learning light years beyond the prognostications. They may look like ordinary senior citizens but they have the lively urgent single-mindedness of 8 year olds with a passionate hobby. And Faith guides, directs, organizes that energy. Where does she find her own?
The old mantel clock ticks as I write this. It did stop ticking when Dad died. No magic there though. He was the one that wound it. At home.
Time for another cup of coffee. And cereal with bananas. No recipe for this! you are on your own. At home.