Fortunate beyond measure…the joys of being a grandmother

There is a four-letter word that is one of the sweetest sounds ever to my ear  - “Tutu” which is what my two grand daughters call me (Hawaiian for grand mother, the name stuck when Lana was a toddler after I brought her a book about a Tutu who taught her grand daughter Lanilai how to do the Hula). Or if they are feeling sassy, it’s “Tut” or “Tutukamen.”

Don’t get me wrong, being a mom is the most amazing experience ever and my children have been my greatest source of love, joy, and heart opening – and grief and every emotion imaginable when they are going through a hard time, whatever their ages – imaginable.  Having children is literally like having pieces of your heart running around outside of you. 

But being a grandmother… well, its’ all the joys of motherhood, but without quite the same angst and responsibility.  And having seen it all, been through it all, weathered it all with my own kids, and having grown a little older and hopefully a lot wiser, being a grand parent is… what can I say?  Pretty much pure joy.  Not that, as one of my fellow grandmother friends puts it,  “worry wart grandma” doesn’t sneak in now and then.

Of course it does. Having grandchildren is also like having pieces of your heart running around outside of you.  Especially the tender, vulnerable, wide open to all that life has to offer, pieces. Just as with your children, you want to protect them from life’s challenges, but you know you can’t. And so you just love them, and trust their journeys, and allow your heart to break open, again and again, with both happiness and sadness.

Being a grand mother is indeed a joy beyond measure…. and being blessed to experience both an aging parent and growing young ones together is a double joy, one that I am infinitely grateful for. There is something indescribably precious about witnessing the beginning years of life, and the ending years of life, hand in hand. Learning from both, feeling tenderly protective of both, marveling at the mystery of Life itself as it flows through our bodies, young and old.

Blessed be.

A summer update: steps along the journey of caring for an elderly parent

We’ve noticed a shift in my almost 89-year-old mum in the last couple of weeks. Suddenly, she seems older, frailer. She’s feeling it too.  She talks more frequently about feeling like she’s on the way out. She expresses how she just can’t seem to find her energy, and doesn’t know who she is anymore. Her level of forgetfulness is definitely worsening. We have honest conversations about death, and choices. I give her lots of hugs.

Our visits to the doctor are getting more frequent. We’re investigating how her heart is functioning. A new round of tests and specialists. And in the midst of this, a move to a new care home this week. Her current place is just a bit too far from us, and it’s on a busy street, the sound of traffic bothers her. Her new home is only a few minutes away from us, with a lovely quiet back yard that looks out onto a field of beautiful trees. She finds so much solace and peace in nature. A lovely living room with the type of furniture that reminds her of home back in England, with a piano she can play.

It’s a big decision, the upheaval of a move when she is already frail, and has experienced so much change in the last six months since her husband died. And yet, in spite of how she is feeling, she is up for it, which gives me hope.

I spend time with my granddaughters, and watch them grow and change, delighting in the new persons they are becoming, and mourning just a tad the little girls they used to be. With my mum, it’s the opposite… she becomes more childlike, more dependent, and there is more mourning than delight in watching her change.  And yet, I remind myself, this is just the natural rhythm of life… and all I can do is be lovingly present for it, in whatever stage, and adapt to what is needed of me to support what is happening.

It’s a bit scary sometimes, to be so needed by her. I go away for a few days and she misses me terribly.  Tells me she feels like she can’t function without me, that I’m her other half. We have some short week-long trips away planned this summer, a dear friend’s daughter’s wedding in Boston, our yearly pilgrimage to the Yuba river. I worry a bit. Am I doing the right thing by going away? Can I, should I, do I want to, put my own life on hold? It’s hard to know… and so I take it one day at a time, being grateful for this bitter sweet time with her, loving her, being gentle with myself, and trusting that I will know what to do at each turn of the corner on this journey we are walking together.

A Spring Update: More musing on caring for an aging parent

An afternoon outing on Spring Lake

 It’s hard to believe it’s been almost three months since my recently widowed 88 year old mum made the journey from England to live in a small care home near us here in Northern California.

We’ve been finding our rhythm, settling into some kind of routine, where she spends at least 2 weekday afternoons and evenings with us, and much of the weekends. Yesterday was the first time I took a much-needed break and took the whole Sunday to go sailing in Tomales Bay with my hubby –pure heaven!

A little role reversal, her turn to push

What have I learned in the past months? Well, for starters, that when you are caring for an elderly parent, as much as you love them, you will go through the whole range of emotions – from enjoyment of their company to exasperation, from affection to irritation, from gratification to overwhelm, from fondness to guilt, from love to helplessness and everything in between.

But the best part? To realize it is all OK.  The whole gamut. It’s just part of the deal.

I guess kind of like raising kids – you adore them, and sometimes they just drive you nuts. But then they are so cute you forgive them anything and fall in love with them all over again.  The main difference is there‘s not always as much of a cute factor at age 88, though my mum can be pretty darn cute.

Another big lesson – the importance of self-care; of tuning into my own well-being regularly enough so that I can recognize the early subtle signs of burnout and the need to take a break. The need to balance my needs and hers, to find the ever shifting sweet spot of the right amount of time together and time apart, to learn that there is only so much I can do for another’s happiness, to know my limits. To discover that I can stretch more than I thought I could, to seek and find support from my family and tribe, and most of all, to feel gratitude to have the opportunity to return the loving care that she gave to me, all those years ago.

Are you caring for an aging parent? I’d love to hear your experience!

It takes a tribe – More musings on caring for an aging parent

I bet we’ve all heard, and probably experienced, the truth of the adage that it takes a village to raise a child. Well you know what? In my experience, the same is true for caring for an aging parent.

Until recently, I’ve been in the rather unusual situation with both my parents that whatever care I could provide, was via long distance support and involvement over the phone and Skype and occasional trips since they were both more than 6,000 miles away in their later years. My dad, bless his heart, decided at the age of 83, with early onset of Parkinson’s, and despite my impassioned pleas to the contrary, to sell his beautiful home a short drive from where I live, leave behind his friends and family and the life he had built here since retiring from his worldwide travels as a plant manager for Goodyear, move with his wife to Italy and turn an old ruin in an isolated village into their dream home. Sadly, although they did manage to build their dream home, my dad’s health deteriorated rather rapidly, my step mom went through a rough patch with her own health, and her kids, who live in her native Sweden (well, actually she was born in Denmark), had to rescue them and help them get set up to live in Sweden, where they had access to much needed medical care and support services.

So I spent a lot of time on the phone with my Swedish siblings during those years – strategizing, decision making, dealing with financial and practical matters, doing what I could on this end, knowing they were bearing the brunt of my dad’s care and needs for support. I am so deeply grateful to my Swedish family for all the love and care they provided to my dad in his last years…  and of course it was hard having him so far away, and not being there. My one trip to Italy and my several to Sweden were bittersweet, lovely to spend time with him and so sad to see his health and mind deteriorate from the ravages of Parkinson’s.

When he passed almost 2 and half years ago, I felt like I had been saying goodbye for the previous 5 years.. as his Parkinson’s affected his vocal chords, I strained to hear him over the telephone, mostly undecipherable whispers on his end, so I learned to have “yes” and “no” conversations with him, and to do a lot of chatting on my end. Email became mostly unintelligible from his end. I was blessed to spend two weeks with him just before he passed, and he would hold my hand, I’d feed him chocolate ice cream, and I played Sinatra for him on my iPad. It was summer in Sweden, and I remember the birds singing outside his open window. My stepmom, when she called me to break the news of his passing once I was back home in California, told me they had flown away the day he died.

I was going to write about caring for my mum, but somehow this is where I ended up. I guess this piece of my story with my dad needed to be told, for today’s story with my mum is woven into yesterday’s story with my dad…. A different ending, as this time I am the sibling on the ground, bearing the burden of care, but way more importantly, enjoying the blessing and privilege of midwifing her through the end phase of her journey, with the help of my California tribe.  

Through the Looking Glass- More reflections on caring for an aging parent

Have you ever had that experience when you happen to glance in the mirror, and for a moment you don’t recognize yourself? Because in your mind you are still the same person you were in your mid 20’s, and there you are, 60’s something staring back at yourself and you think, “Om my goodness, what happened?” “Who is this?”

My mum and I were talking about that the other day. I can see sometimes that she is just so bewildered to find herself in her 88 year old body, with failing eyesight and faltering steps and a very forgetful mind.  Don’t get me wrong, in many ways she is doing great for 88. She is on virtually no meds, she is bright and alert and her intelligence, humor and wit are in no way diminished.

So sometimes we reminisce about those days when she was a vibrant red head who danced the rhumba and the samba at the company parties she used to regularly host as a “Goodyear wife” back in the days of my childhood, or the pianist who practiced the classical composers for hours on end, or the woman who scored a hole in one at the country golf club in Colombia, who flew back to England 35 years ago to care for her own aging mother. And so the world turns.

It certainly gives me pause for reflection, wondering what my life will look like in another 25 years when I reach her age. So I watch her and learn, and I notice what gives her joy, and I see it is the simplest of things. A beautiful piece of classical music on the radio. The birds pecking away at their seeds on our birdfeeder. A bowl of ice cream. But most of all, the joy of being near her family and sharing our lives. In the end, isn’t that what it’s really all about? The love that we share?