Crying:  Turning the Faucet Off and On

Posted: September 25, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Emotional and Physical Challenges, Miscellaneous | Tags: , , | Leave a comment
Image result for Tear Drop Art

Why Don’t I Cry? – BK Books

I find myself crying these days at the smallest provocation. It wasn’t always like that. So I was drawn by a letter written to Barbara Karnes by a woman wondering why she doesn’t cry.

See Barbara Karnes September 20, 2021, blog entitled Why Don’t I Cry?
Why Don’t I Cry? – BK Books

The reader’s letter listed a lot of tragic life events she had suffered.  She was puzzled by the fact that none of these events caused her to cry in the way that people normally do and was wondering if this is an indicator of emotional strength or is just the ability to shut feelings out.  She asks herself, “How am I able to not hurt because of these life events. Is it emotional strength?

Barbara Karnes acknowledged that this woman has experienced a great deal of death in her life—more than most.  She could not, of course, explain why, but did offer up her thoughts.

  • Some people are criers and others, not so much.
  • The showing and expressing of emotions is individual, and so is grief.
  • The emotions of grief come out in some way—some cry, some show anger, some depression, some “tough it up” and move forward, some get physically sick.
  • Look at your reactions, expressions, and emotions and try to determine in what way you express grief:  take on projects, work harder, run harder, keep busy so you don’t think or feel, sleep more or less, anger quickly, experience frustration, feel unsettled or aimless. 
  • It isn’t how many tears we shed that shows our grief; no tears doesn’t mean we don’t care or don’t feel; we all experience and express grief in our own individual way—a way that works for us. 

The article caused me to reflect on my own history of crying, a subject I broached throughout the writing of my memoir, An Imperfect and Unremarkable Grandma, in 2015.  At that time, I was dealing with the disappointment of my daughter moving away with her husband and my three grandchildren.  They had lived nearby for ten years, ever since the birth of grandchild #1. Looking back, I realize that writing was my way of working through the emotions of my lifetime. 

One morning in late November during my sixth-grade year, I got up to go to school and discovered that my father was sick in bed and unable to go to work. I felt concerned because this was very unusual. Daddy’s conditioned worsened and he was hospitalized with a medical crisis. The doctor told my mother that our father might die. While Mom drove us home that night, with my older brother in the front seat and me alone in the back, she told us that Daddy had leukemia. Mom tempered the information by saying that he might have another four years to live. We were instructed not to tell anyone, including Dad. This is the way cancer was handled during those times.  

(Actually, in those days all sorts of issues were kept hidden away “in the closet.”) It became “our secret,” and was never discussed. Mom did not even tell her very best friends. It was at this point – just as I was about to turn eleven years of age – that my childhood came abruptly to an end. Although I was chronologically still a child, I now felt an oppressive weight upon my shoulders. My girlhood was interrupted. I dealt with my emotions by getting into the bathtub and running the water so that I could cry and not be heard. In this way, I taught myself not to shed tears. I became numbed, and except on a few rare occasions, I did not weep readily for at least a half-dozen years.

An Unremarkable and Imperfect Grandma

The ability to cry again developed gradually over the years.  But it was about the time that my children were launching into adulthood that the crying began to accelerate. 

First when my son enlisted in the Air Force.  (I spend months of agonizing only to have the doctor deny his admission at the last moment.)

After the beginning of the New Year, in 1992, the crying began. I would often tear up, especially when my son played, I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane by Peter, Paul and Mary on the stereo.

An Unremarkable and Imperfect Grandma

Next when my daughter went away to college. 

When my oldest daughter left home to start college, the crying commenced. I frequently wandered into her room in the middle of the night to quietly weep. It felt so empty without her.

An Unremarkable and Imperfect Grandma

Even when my niece was married on October 21, 2001. (Of course, I had also been crying daily for weeks beforehand while reading the plethora of reports about 9-11.)

The couple performed a waltz to music from the movie Legends of the Fall. Their dancing was so graceful and beautiful in this “Old South” setting that I was moved to tears. My daughter took one look at me and said, “You didn’t cry at my wedding.” I enlightened her with the following explanation: “I was unemployed and on antidepressants at your wedding

An Unremarkable and Imperfect Grandma

When my younger daughter and her husband put down their dog.

Then one morning my son-in-law woke up to find that their dog had truly lost control of his physical abilities. The vet was called to come to their house to put their beloved pet to “sleep” surrounded by the family that loved him. When my daughter phoned me to tell me what they were doing, I got off the phone crying. I am not a “dog person” by any stretch of the imagination. “Tell me what to do,” I sobbed to my husband, “I don’t understand why I’m feeling like this.”

An Unremarkable and Imperfect Grandma

These days I find myself crying at every provocation, big or small.  I can’t get through the mere telling of a tale without struggling with tears.  I remember that my husband’s grandmother used to do the same thing.  I can’t figure it out, and frankly, it’s embarrassing.  But then there is a pandemic going on, so maybe I should just cut myself some slack.   

I would suggest to the woman who wrote to Barbara Karnes: Don’t fret about it. Just allow your emotions to evolve.

 

Lickity Splickity or Little by Little?

Posted: April 21, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Aftermath of Caregiving, Emotional and Physical Challenges | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Did you ever listen to a speaker or read an article and think: “I never thought about it like that before”?

Well, that’s what happened when I read the Barbara Karnes article about cleaning out the belongings of a deceased family member. 

BK Books | Something to Think About
Cleaning Out Their Belongings After Death

Why?  Because her advice is the anthesis of what I would do—and actually have done.  It’s against my nature.  I’m a minimalist—the kind of person who is always paring down, cleaning out, and organizing. 

I used to teach in a prison and there was a video I would show to my class with the coolest down-to earth counselor who had a way of explaining things in a way that just “hit it on the head”.  The video featured this little girl who was like a “little mother”—always cleaning up.  The counselor explained the child’s behavior by pointing out this was her way of trying to exert some control in her life.  It was a coping mechanism to counter the uncontrollable situations in her environment.   

For me, this counselor’s explanation was an “AHA” moment. It brought some light to my own behaviors. 

Barbara Karnes received a letter asking for “guidance to family members who have lost a loved one regarding how to manage the process of cleaning out the residence of the person who passed away.” 

The approach I have personally taken—one which I have often recommended—is to do it ahead of time.  I have addressed this issue in my book, What to Do about Mama? by saying “I will not leave my children the burden of my messes.” (p. 332).

As my mother-in-law would say: “There’s always mañana.” She left the daunting task of downsizing and distributing her belongings to her children—a process that happened several times as her circumstances changed.” 

As with everything, I suppose, there are different ways to look at the chore of having to allocate and dispose of your parents’ belongings. Depending on how they confronted that task, you will most likely have to deal with it, at least to some degree. That process can be formidable to be sure, but it can also be meaningful and healing from a nostalgic point of view.
In light of my own caregiving experience, I am determined not to leave my children the remnants of my life in a state of disarray. I have always appreciated that my mother did not do that to my brother and me, and I was never happy about the fact that my mother-in-law did exactly that.
So, downsizing became the first project on the top of my list. David and I went through all our storage areas and closets, paring our belongings down to whatever we truly needed or wanted.
Next, I made a detailed inventory of our belongings. An appraiser came over one evening and gave us a verbal appraisal of many items on the list. Then, I distributed the inventory to our children so they could express what they were interested in having someday. It was like pulling teeth to get them to do it. I found it impossible to make hard-and-fast decisions but did manage to come up with a system that I think will make it easier for our children to distribute, donate, and dispose of our belongings. “

What to Do about Mama? pp. 221, 303-304

 I have also blogged about the topic, previously: 

Downsizing

Belongings

Processing the Pictures

Barbara Karnes recommendations, are quite different:

  1. First, if you don’t have to clean out belongings, don’t for awhile, wait even months if necessary. There can be great comfort seeing and holding something they treasured or used.  In the early days of grief, their belongings can bring comfort and will help you.
  2. Second, don’t make any major life decisions, like selling the house, moving in with family, spending large sums of money, or investments for at least a year. That year will give you time to think with your mind not your emotions.
  3. Now, some people can’t wait months, even weeks, let alone a year. Decisions have to be made right away. If that is the case think of what you can keep, even if the material items aren’t needed but have sentimental memories—-keep them for awhile, you will know when you can let go of them. Err on the side of keeping.
  4. Adult children often rush in and organize us elderly, thinking they know best. This is a reminder to you adult children to be gentle, try to put yourself in your loved one’s situation and ask how you would feel and what would you want if it was you living this life challenge of releasing a lifetime of memories and often independence.
  5. There are companies you can hire that will help you downsize, relocate, organize the “house item releasing.” These people are sensitive to the emotional needs and experience of having to part with possessions accumulated over a lifetime–or not. 
  6. When moving in the time of grief, letting go of material items is like letting go of the memories those items hold. It is an added burden to an already emotional assault on our idea of living.

I live in a condominium community which—though not specifically a 55+ community—is largely a 55+ community.  In the year of the pandemic, our neighborhood has found itself in a state of transition, with some of the residents leaving to progress up the ladder of senior living options, and others passing away.  One gentleman sold his home, downsized, and moved to a nearby assisted living facility—a difficult relocation during the coronavirus.  Though admittedly of advanced age, I was still surprised when I saw his obituary in the paper only a few weeks later. 
Now I wonder: 

What treasures were left? 

Cleaning Out Their Belongings After Death – BK Books

A Sense of Purpose

Posted: March 18, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Topics of Current Interest | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Has COVID-19 had an impact on your sense of purpose?  In her March 15, 2021, article A Reason To Get Out Of Bed, Barbara Karnes discusses this issue in terms of how purpose impacts end-of-life.

  A Reason To Get Out Of Bed – BK Books

Barbara reports that when she awoke the other morning, she began to think:  Why not just stay in bed all day? Why do I NEED to get out of bed? What do I NEED to do?  It was then that she realized that because of COVID, her sense of purpose had vastly diminished.  Something that Barbara already knew, something she had learned through her profession, was that having purpose is needed to move forward into living. 

This, too, is my experience.  When the time came that my mother-in-law could no longer live alone and the choice was made for her to move into our home, she was in very poor condition due to advanced COPD, falls and fractures, as well as a number of other serious disorders.  We didn’t expect her to live much beyond two more years. 

What we hadn’t considered was the strong sense of purpose that still burned within her.  She got up each morning insisting to get dressed first thing.  She set goals—one of which we helped her meet—which was to see her last grandchild graduate from college. (This meant procuring a special oxygen system to enable her to flying to Colorado for graduation.) 

The woman not only had goals, she verbalized them vociferously. 

“My goal is to live to one hundred.” “It’s all in your attitude.” “I don’t want to miss anything. “I just keep plodding along.”

What to Do about Mama? pp. 30-31

In my book, “What to Do about Mama?”  others reported similar stories about the longevity of seniors living life with a purpose. 

I recall an assessment I administered with a woman well over ninety. She said that her son was a widower and remarked that I reminded her of her deceased daughter-in-law. Later in the assessment, she asked me, “Are you married?” Afterward, when I was walking to my car, I burst out laughing when it suddenly dawned on me that she was exploring my status of availability for her son. I think it was important for her to know he was taken care of before she was ready to depart this earth.

And here is another reason one senior is motivated, just like the Energizer Bunny, to keep going and going and going . . . Her mother hadn’t “planned” to live past eighty-five. But once Patricia’s siblings began to compile a family history, she expressed the desire to see the work completed. It gave her satisfaction that her children, who hadn’t always gotten along, were cooperating on the project.

Peter told us that because the Germans had shot at him with “88s” during the war, it was his goal to live to be eighty-eight years old. He and one other man in his platoon had been the only two that were not wounded or killed by the German artillery.

What to Do about Mama? pp. 227, 306

In her article: Barbara Karnes concludes that “The year of 2020 changed everyone’s sense of purpose, made everyone question their reason for getting out of bed each morning.  The pandemic did end a way of life we were living. It stopped our routines, our habits of daily living and forced us to reexamine how we are living our lives, what is important to us, how do we just survive.” 

So true.  I find that I am filling my days with “busy-ness”—various projects, some that I like, some not so much so.  Why? 

Unlike some people, such as the healthcare workers who are pushing their purpose to the limits, there are others who have been stopped in their tracks—forced to shelter, to disconnect, to stop what we were doing.  We ask ourselves, “Why am I doing this?” But as Barbara Karnes suggests, maybe it would be preferable to rethink our question and ask, “What can I do while this is happening.”   In that way, we may be able to better-establish our sense of purpose and our reason to get out of bed in the morning. 

Don’t ask: Why am I doing this?
Do ask: What can I do when this is happening?

It’s COMPLICATED–Attitudes about Dying

Posted: January 23, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: Emotional and Physical Challenges, Topics of Current Interest | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I will admit to the fact that I have pretty strong feelings about life and death issues.

  • I hold to the belief that quality of life supersedes quantity of life. 
  • Although I understand the practical reasons that nursing home residents and older people in general are the top priority for COVID vaccinations, I struggle with the concept that young people—with most of their life ahead of them—must wait for someone like me—with most of my life behind me—to get vaccinated.    
  • When the hospice spiritual advisor asked my mother-in-law if she had ever considered stopping treatment, she said no, that her goal was to live to one hundred and that she didn’t want to miss anything.  To be honest, the thought that ran through my mind was, “Is there no end in sight?”
  • I thought my daughter-in-law’s mother exhibited profound courage and strength when she decided not to treat her stage four cancer after an unexpected diagnosis.
  • I support the perspective expressed by Ezekiel Emanuel in his article “Why I Hope to Die ant 75,” which appeared in the September 2009 edition of The Atlantic. (Emanuel was recently named to President Biden’s COVID-19 Advisory Board.)

    http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/09/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/

“It is Emanuel’s contention that―whereas death may deprive us of experiences and milestones; of time spent with our spouse, children, and grandchildren; indeed, of all the things we value—living too long is also a loss. It renders us disabled, or at least faltering and declining. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to society and the world.

Even if we manage not to become burdens to our children, our shadowing them until their old age is also a shortfall. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and remember us—no longer as vibrant and engaged—but feeble, ineffectual, and pitiable. It is indeed such memories that are the ultimate tragedy.

Americans might live longer than their parents, but they are likely to be more incapacitated, both physically and mentally. Although we are growing older, our older years are not of high quality. Health care has not slowed the aging process so much as it has slowed the dying process.

So, yes, I am in agreement with Emanuel. I want to die with respect and without aggressive care—no ventilators, feeding tubes, dialysis, surgery, antibiotics, or any other medication—other than palliative care; in other words: no life-sustaining interventions. A do-not-resuscitate order and a complete advance directive have been written and recorded (even if I am conscious but not mentally competent). I do not want my “consumption” to outweigh my ‘contribution.’”

What to Do about Mama? pp. 300-301

I also admit, ITS’ COMPLICATED.

Hidden Brain

This becomes abundantly clear in The Caregiver Space article, “The Ventilator:  Life, Death and the Choices We Make at the End”,  November 19, 2020, and its accompanying Hidden Brain Podcast.

The Ventilator: Life, Death And The Choices We Make At The End | The Caregiver Space

In the Podcast John Rinka tells his wife’s story. Stephanie was a nurse with a strong opinion about quality and quantity of life (much like mine).  Together they had ongoing conversations about end-of-life issues, and Stephanie was always unequivocal—she wouldn’t want to be kept alive if her quality of life was gone. But then Stephania became a victim of ALS and the Rinka family discovered that choices prefered when we’re healthy may no longer make sense to us when confronting death.

 As John Rinka shares:

  • Seemly rational choices you make when you are happy can change when you are facing death.
  • “I can’t live that way” becomes “I want to see tomorrow.”
  • When there is no more hope, every day just gets worse. 
  • She could have lived peacefully with dignity but brought misery upon herself and her family.
  • We were overwhelmed with daily challenges and the progressive decline.
  • The feeding tube was a big decision but when Stephanie chose the ventilator I was floored; this was not the way she ever wanted to live.

Their son Jason shares with us as well:

  • It was like having two moms.  One, the rational mom and experienced nurse; the other, the mom who wanted to live until tomorrow.
  • The mistake is in thinking you know the choices you would make in the moment.
  • She wasn’t thinking rationally–but only, “I’ll have tomorrow.”
  • I don’t want to go through that—I don’t want to be a burden to my family. But the reality becomes: “Are you ready to leave this?”

Most poignantly, John sums is up by saying: “I would relive any of those days before the ventilator, but there’s not one day you could pay me enough money to relive after the ventilator. 

We all have more than one version of ourselves, each with different desires. 
Fear, confusion, and love make easy decisions difficult. 

Another interesting perspective is expressed in the January 21, 2021, Barbara Karnes article:  The Scar In Your Heart: Grief In End of Life Care

The Scar In Your Heart: Grief In End of Life Care – BK Books

Karnes received a comment from a hospice nurse who said:  “The JOY of hospice was mine for years.  I could easily see the beauty in almost any end-of-life situation. Then, my dad died on our service in 2015. I continued to work for hospice for the next three years but after my dad died I couldn’t see ANY beauty in end of life. I completely walked away in 2018. I don’t know how to “get it back.”

Barbara Karnes responded that when someone in a professional role is facing a loved one’s end of life, they are confronted with entirely different perspective. The dying is personal and therefore has a different impact. Entering a patient’s home after the death of a loved one touches and rubs the professional’s grief wound. 

Caring for people at end of life has its own unique challenges.  Hospice, Palliative Care and Home Health agencies need to deeply support their staff or they will suffer from compassion fatigue.