Well, we're coming up on the holidays again-I can't believe the end of the year is here again already! As always, it makes me think back to all the very different times I've spent with my family since becoming an adult. There have been good experiences and poor experiences-and even some very bad experiences, but I guess the important thing is...I'm still having experiences. Dad, of course, is not.
Dad used to really enjoy the holidays, especially when we were little. I think that Christmas was a very important time for him, deep down. Although there are many things I don't know about how he felt or thought, I do feel this, and I have reason to believe that all the events on the year's calendar were as important to him as to anyone else. He always seemed a little more loose and happy during these last months of the year.
After years and years of being the one who made the holidays happen for my family, I finally called a halt and decided to make the holidays for myself, and for my now-husband. It's exhausting, as so many caregivers (and many women!) know, to create these huge special experiences for family. It gets even harder when one has a chronic health condition. I know that, when he was able, Dad appreciated my efforts to make the holidays special, and that's all that's really important.
He really has no more concept of time or seasons passing, at least as far as I know, and will spend those particular days like every other day in his house. He has stepped off the wheel of shared experiences that make us a society, and I have to respect that.
I doubt I will spend time with him on the actual days, although I definitely will in the weeks before and after. It seems to me that there's nothing about those particular days that will matter any more than another; if I were to make a big deal about them, it would be more about my comfort than his. I'm just going to keep it low-key again this year, as I've discovered works the best for my little family. But I'm also aware that another year has wheeled slowly by without Dad, who will never have the fun of experiencing the holidays again.
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Having had a mother and a mother-in-law with Alzheimers, I empathize with you! I recently did a blog about caregivers (http://www.esthersjoyinthemourning.blogspot.com/) and was reminded of those days when being s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d thin. May God bless you and give you strength and joy in the midst of your challenges!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your kind words. I hope things are easier for you now!
ReplyDeleteI'm thankful for everything my wife brings to the celebration of the Holidays. I geuss we can never go back and sometimes wouldn't want to. However Joy and I have an opportunity to make new traditions not to the exclusion of the past but perhaps along with them. My father passed away in '91 and I'm sure he would have loved Joy and enjoyed the company of Doug and Pat, Joy's parents. But indeed that wheel keeps turning as it is doing this year again. Maybe awareness of it brings those not on it to new wheel. I need to think about that. Merry X-mas
ReplyDeleteI love you Joy
I wish my parents could have known you because they would have loved you, without a doubt! Thanks for all your support, you're the best and I love you!
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