Regrets

 

So, even though Shelley isn’t here, I continue to write this blog and offer suggestions. I hope my offerings benefit caregivers. Assisting caregivers helps me with my grief. I understand the heartbreak of watching a loved one vanish while they live. Dementia is a diabolic disease.

I experience regrets, but I know I did the best I could.

We drove past her memory care facility yesterday and I said, “Shelley isn’t there. She’s in a better place.” Paul agreed. I looked up through the car’s windshield and into the cloudy heavens. I said, “Hi, Shelley, I know you are healthy and having a wonderful time up there.”

We drove on, but I wanted to stop at the facility. I longed to walk to her room and see her. Just one more time. But back then, a monstrous illness occupied her frail body.  At the end of her life, she lay in bed, sick unto death, and seeing her in that condition gave me immeasurable agony. She couldn't move. Her breaths transformed into laborious, shallow and infrequent ones. She slept. I don’t wish for another second like those. But still, I yearn for a few extra moments with a healthy Shelley.

 On the day God lifted her out of her misery, she couldn’t open her eyes, but she blinked as I spoke to her. I told her we loved her and that God did too. I wish I had stayed longer with her on the day God came for her, but we can’t walk into the unknown with the dying. We can only say goodbye. And I did that earlier. I knew God was coming, but I didn’t know when, but I regret I didn't stay.

Growing up, Shelley often acted strong-willed. As a child and teen, her choices stressed us. Even as a kid, she acted spontaneously and never thought of the consequences. However, she also exhibited a sweet, generous, engaging personality. She never meant to cause us emotional turmoil. She didn't seem to know the difference.

On her arrival, due to low birth weight, she spent 10 days in an incubator. The hospital officials wouldn’t let me see her. In retrospect, I should have insisted on tending to her, but as a teenager, I didn’t have the confidence to demand my rights.

I regret I  didn't hold her, feed her, and sing to her during those days. She would have known me.  Science now recognizes how much the mom’s presence is essential to the baby’s physical and emotional growth. When the mom is absent, emotional growth suffers.

I’ve often wondered if losing the connection with me caused something to click in her brain. Perhaps this disconnect caused some sort of defect that later led to her inability to recognize behavior causes consequences.

Did abandonment after birth lead to Shelley’s Alzheimer’s? Probably not, but on the other hand, scientists keep discovering new knowledge. At least, it is new to them. God planted solutions here, we just need to find them.

When I delivered this precious, tiny four-pound baby, nurses didn’t think she’d survive. I kept saying, “I don’t hear her crying.”

The doctor replied, “We are working on her.”

After what seemed like an eternity, I heard a feeble weep coming from across the room. She sounded like a newborn kitten. She produced no lusty yell, but her weak utterance sounded beautiful to me.

The nurses whisked her off to an incubator at faster speeds than a Daytona race car driver utilizes. They placed her in the artificial womb, and she struggled alone, determined to live. She had grown accustomed to my voice, and then, boom! She didn’t hear me speak again for ten days. She must have felt like I had abandoned her.

Hospitals now know the importance of the bonding between babies and parents, and immediately after birth, the nurses place the baby in the mom’s arms. Babies know their mom by the sound of their voice, and their mom can soothe them instantly. During the days when Shelley was born, the doctors thought birth should be sterile.

And of course, hospitals should be. Sanitization is important. So is common sense.

Suggestions for Caregivers

1.      Regrets will come. Realize your limitations and humanity. Forgive yourself. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

2.      Spend as much time as you can with your loved one. If they leave this Earth when you aren’t there, it’s okay. You will follow them one day, but you can’t accompany them on their final journey.

3.      Remember this! Everyone grieves differently. Do what is right for you. If you need to cry alone. Do it. If you need to talk, find someone who listens. If You need to be angry with God, it’s okay. God can handle it. You can shout at Him if you want to. Jesus empathizes with us. Jesus cried when Lazarus died. He didn’t cry because of the death, Jesus sobbed because he cared about the relatives and friends who were hurting. Jesus currently sits at the right hand of God, His Father, and Jesus tells the Father how we feel. Of course, God knows this already, but Jesus has first-hand knowledge.

4.      Knowing the Holy Trinity understands may help you. It may not.

5.      Acceptance takes time. And the amount of time varies per person.

6.      Why does God allow this bad stuff? I don’t know why He allows good stuff.

7.      You will get through these days. Believe it.

8.      If you need financial help, pray for it to come your way. God likes for you to ask Him so He can surprise you.