Still Learning How to Be

I'm trying to learn from this experience.

“And what experience is that?” you might ask.

Life in general, I’d answer first.

But lately, more candidly, I would be referring to the ongoing business of dealing with my elderly mother’s long decline, which has recently taken on new dimensions of creepiness and complexity, the specifics of which I don’t care to elaborate on at this particular moment.

So let me talk about it in a more general way. My life seems to have split into two distinct sections. There's the part where I dwell in the refuge of my days here, grateful for the comfort of my own small work, the voices of books, walks and rides and connection to friends.

And then there are the journeys down into the bleak abyss of an Orange County assisted living residence, where my mother has unequivocally slid into a "how-much-longer-can-this-go-on?" phase.

I know it's just another aspect of the human condition, and millions of other people are going through this same sort of stuff, and there's really nothing more that I can do, but oh, it's wearisome. I am a person who works constantly just to keep depression at bay, and this is like having my head intermittently pushed underwater. I struggle to hold my breath and keep my spirit until I burst up through the surface, gasping for air.

I haven’t learned the trick of just ignoring it. I have siblings who have done so, and that seems to work for them. My problem is that I believe right down to the core of me that in order to be human, I must see this through. I need to look in on her, manage her care as best as I can, try to bring her a happy moment now and then.

Basically that means I am summoned to stare at suffering, decay, and imminent death, traveling for hours to do so up close.

Meanwhile, I’m well into the final third of my own life––if I’m lucky––and I want to focus on that life, engage in it fully...even laugh sometimes. But my mother's declining health is always on my mind, and I can't feel carefree knowing how much my visits mean to her. I just wish I had a little help with this.

And I am not a particularly virtuous or unselfish person. I just feel that this duty is what I’m supposed to do. My soul has a code, and if I don’t follow that code, I don’t feel good about myself or anything else. I have no choice but to be who I am, and I can’t thrust that morality on anyone else. They either feel it or not. As far as the siblings go, I accept the way they are. We have a painful family history.

On the other hand, I can't view basic decency as a selective behavior to be applied only as a reward if it seems deserved. For me, these mother trips are about fundamental sympathy and compassion, not reciprocity or thanks for happy times past. And my mother is always grateful to see me, even lately, when so little brings her pleasure.

Which doesn’t mean I can’t whine now and then, and I'm in whine mode right now. Sorry about that, but at least it’s on my own website and not Facebook…right? And I'm not looking for thumbs up or sympathy. All I want is to communicate, in a meaningful way. (One can actually do that on the internet, although you wouldn't always know it.)

I also know very well that in the end we have to do our own suffering and feel our own loneliness, and I can’t take that away from anyone else. Watching my mother’s misery does not mitigate her misery; mostly it just makes me miserable. So I have to remind myself that backing off sometimes is necessary and healthy.

Also, some parts of life are just hard and sad, and we have to face the fact that we cannot make the sad parts NOT be sad.

But even within those sections of life there can be little gifts and surprises and beautiful moments. I cannot tell you how often I have been unexpectedly nudged and hugged and helped along by friends and even strangers.

And I cannot tell you how often the wonder and beauty of the world seems to shimmer and wash over me and suddenly I am shining and part of it all.

So I'm just trying to learn.

"Don't try so hard," says Monte. "Just be."

Oh, I wish it were that simple.