I am a natural caregiver. Over time I have
learned that something I not only enjoy, but that keeps me feeling relevant, is
helping other people. I took a test several months back and discovered that I'm
a type 2 Enneagram personality. Even my
career in esthetics reflects my innate need to be needed. I have enjoyed at
times being both a stay at home parent and a home schooling parent. All these
things have given me to think that I will succeed at being the primary
caregiver for my grandmother.
My father's mother, she has lived in the same
house since before I was born. She took care of me many times when I was a
little girl in this very house. I remember her mother, my great grandmother,
also living in this house at some point in time. So it seems that a 5th
generation will live in this house that was a shack when my grandparents
purchased it for $3500.
I have several very clear memories of being in
this house as a child: being very young, eating dinner in the living room while
Star Trek showed on the television, with my plate on the hassock, being sick
and having my temperature taken as I lay on the sofa and accidentally biting
through the (mercury) thermometer, swinging on the swing in the basement with
my grandma and trying to touch our toes on the ceiling, getting dressed up in a
coat with fur trim and my Black Pats (black maryjane patent leather shoes) and
going to church with my grandparents, my grandpa in a hospital bed in the
living room, dying of cancer. Many more. I even moved in for several months one
year in my 20’s, convalescing while my grandmother cared for me after I was in
a motorcycle accident. This house is as much a part of my life as anything else
I can think of. Even though the landline has been gone for a decade, I still
remember the phone number.
Now 86, grandma has dementia, and cannot care
for herself. She needs help and recently, full time help so that she doesn’t
hurt herself at night. My son and I moved into the same basement that my dad
once lived in as a child with his parents, as my grandfather finished building
the main floor of the house.
It’s a strange juxtaposition, being the
grandchild caring for my elder. As I make her breakfast in the morning, I
remember mornings of her making me soft boiled eggs with toast in a special
Mickey Mouse dish, drinking grape juice and watching her move around the
kitchen, giving my grandpa insulin at the beginning of the day. As I help her
bath, I think of being so small that the bathtub seemed like a swimming pool
and having her wash my back and powder my bum when I was dry. Everything
reversed now. She and I giggle as I help her with the daily tasks of eating,
getting to and from the bathroom and figuring out which horrible television
courtroom show she would rather watch in the afternoon.
Best, we sit after breakfast, drinking our
coffee, and she tells me about when she was a young girl, her memories of that
time much more clear than those of what she ate 15 minutes ago. She tells me
about her old school house when she was a little girl, growing up in Broadview,
Montana. She remembers her daddy letting her drive the old pickup around the
fields, chasing cows when she was in the third grade. She remembers being 16 and
going to Corpus Christi, Texas with her mother to marry my grandfather, a
handsome navy man, who had already lied and told the court clerk that my
grandmother was 18 in order to get a marriage license. She remembers waiting
table in Corpus Christi. She liked living near the Gulf of Mexico.
Now she counts on someone to do most things for
her. She doesn’t have good balance and uses a walker to get from one room in
the house to another. She doesn’t want to ride in the car to go anywhere any
more. Her hearing has degraded until she has a hard time, even with a hearing
aid and because of the dementia, she has a hard time following a movie; she
can’t read a book or do her favorite word find puzzles. Sometimes she tries to
play solitaire with a deck of cards, but gets easily frustrated when the
numbers and suits run together in front of her eyes.
My days have become very small. I get up and
make coffee, which I drink a lot more of now that I’m home for hours at a time.
I make breakfast and sit quietly while she eats and watches the traffic out the
front windows, the people catching buses and the chickens in the yard across
the street. I read. I make several small meals a day. I do dishes. I fix small
things that need repair. I unpack my own boxes (unpacking takes me forever) and
decide what things to keep and which shall replace the things that she hasn’t
used in years. I make myself available so that when she calls out, I can come
and get her whatever it is she needs, sometime just so she knows she’s not
alone. I sit next to her on the couch and hold her hand and have the same short
conversations over and over. Yes, it’s a beautiful day outside. That tree
across the street is the most beautiful tree, with the red leaves. This is your
house; you’ve lived here for more than 60 years. Yes, we’ve moved in with you!
We sleep downstairs. The rabbit’s name is Oliver. He doesn’t eat cat food. The
days slip quickly by when they are measured in 1-2 hour intervals of napping
between bathrooms breaks and “meals” that are about 6 bites.
It will be an interesting adventure, caring for
my grandmother during this time of her life. I hope that it will give me
insight for myself when the time comes for me to require care from another. I
hope I don’t spend the next 5 years forgetting what it’s like to be myself and
becoming a crazy lady who feeds all the stray cats in the neighborhood. And I
do hope that I manage to give my grandma a little bit of the comfort that she’s
given me over the years.
me and my grandma, December 1971
