so glad you're back and posting here man, and I appreciate your wisdom and insight, lots to take here and I'm going to try these strategies....just a point of clarification, and I'm sorry for your loss.... is your aunt you were close to the one who passed away?
As for the bolded, its draining and can be consuming but I'm not sure I agree totally and I'd submit may you don't either if you're doing it. Its a selfless act that has absolute no good outcome but you do it anyway and I think there's just something there. I'd learned to, or maybe its a coping mechanism, to redefine "success" or "victory" in this situation. And maybe thats an american/human need for a happy ending or some kind of positive narrative to fashion, but every day, and if you get some lucidity and engagement, its not so bad. If your definition of success is renewed vitality or endless life, of course that is a losing equation.
I will say, the whole experience for me, and I'm dealing with a father with dementia, is, I really question what makes us human, what makes us a person. The conversations are superficial and not at all substantive, but my father, if the knob is broken on the radio, its stuck on a happy station. He's happy, and I really think he exists to love and be loved. He doesn't retain information and he couldn't tell you who's president. This seems to trouble my siblings, they've fully disengaged from the situation and I'm left trying to engage with him and read tea leaves. I guess, the feel like he has nothing left to say. But I talk to them, I talk to other people, who REALLY has anything to say. My day is a series of trite conversations, maybe referencing what is hopefully a safe, or outwardly shared opinion of a current event or referencing something in sports (CAN YOU BELIVE PARKEY MISSED WHAT AN JERK). But there's so little depth to day to day. When I see my father, I really feel like he's found some zen. Zen with a cost of me doing most of the day to day duties he needs, but zen nonetheless. Its not at all without challenges and headaches and frustrations and tears but I think its a good fight worth fighting, at least as of now.
Clarification - the Aunt i said '90 is 80 drunk & underwater' to was among those holding vigil around an older (89 then) Aunt we'd just taken off life support. Close to both - my mother's fam is very tightknit.
As for the bolded, "i wish that raising parents to their graves was noble or rewarding", i think we're actually on the same page.
I don't like my parents. Never have. My mother, in looks & demeanor, resembles the Squire Danaher character in
The Quiet Man - a domineering, cantankerous keeper of tallies & grudges. Though a cheery, mild-mannered sort, the next time my farmboy-turned-scientist father considers the impact of his actions on others will be the first time. I begrudge them both the near fifty years it took to dash the effects of their natures & nurtures out of my system. Ran away at 15yo and, tho not because of them, was glad to be rid and did not return. Always stayed in touch, remained civil but not inclusive til i became a widower 20 years ago and detoxed from grief & drugs in an uncle's nearby hunting cabin, when we established a true detente.
My mother, though closing in on 95, has been an invalid for over 20 yrs. I starting trying to return East in order to offer help but my work wouldnt let me and i moved to the Boston area after i retired early this decade. Congestive heart failure had me Ma near the end, free room & board and quiet to work on my writing fit budget & plans, so i moved up to VT and in with the folks 5 yrs ago and "promised" my mother she wouldnt have to go to a home as long as i (who'd worked many med/surg rotations in hospitals in a time when that was often required from psych techs) could help it.
Be careful with your promises. Ma rallied with her lil boyo at home and what i thought would be less than a yr has gone past five now and offers no sign of relief. After she got comfortable with my private handling of her, it took me a year to disabuse her of the notion she could crab, cry & craze her way thru me like she does everyone else. My father was vital until a tick-borne illness waylayed him a year ago and now he's sunk to indulging every bitterness he'd masked so well so long. I showed him up in a very cruel way when i briefly hit the bigtime and his new moroseness betrays how much he's resented me the five decades hence.
It took me a very long time to find my artist's heart and i felt highly exposed when i finally did. Returning to the nest seemed like a good move then, but i've been asked precisely two questions about my work or anything that matters to me in my half-decade here and not one request to hear one of the fifty or so songs i've spent hours, days & weeks bashing out just below them, yet i must revel in every triumph & tragedy, real or imagined, of theirs. I feed them, haul them around, diaper one of em twice a day, as well as indulge the drool & drivel & fear & hate & games of their drunken, underwater lives. I have heard each their anecdotes hundreds of times, but not one recollection of me past age ten, not even their attendance of the opening of my
Dinner & Divorce play at Boston's Lyric Theater. Not to mention how hollow rings any note of joy in this frozen tomb.
Yet i continue without complaint - til today anyways. Always cheery & helpful, blow up no more often than once every 4-5 months (Ativan helps w those rage cycles). Because i love them and because there is something so right about putting oneself aside for another in need, especially ones who worked like dogs, sweated & suffered & stayed up & bent the course of their lives in their hopes for their progeny, right or wrong. It turned out to be anything but noble or rewarding. Merely right. And i've heard the same from the vast majority of other passive heroes who've gone the extra mile to let their folks down lightly. Good luck with yours - feel free to blow off steam to me should you feel the need. Remember - they're so good at finding your buttons because they installed them.