It has been a long day - one of my 'working' days and leaving me with the usual aftermath - a mix of feelings, both apprehensive and awe inspiring - dealing as I do, with people who devote a large chunk of their lives to looking after the kids whose families can't.
Then my sister phoned from interstate and the conversation turned for a while to our mother, aged 85 and a sufferer of dementia, and currently resident in my sister's household. Most days there are more lows than highs, and the level of frustration is constant, but I marvel that my sister carries on with her various other interests and commitments and rarely loses her dry sense of humour.
Still pondering our discussion I turned on my computer and, with little motivation to post anything here, decided to read a little instead. With exquisite timing, stories of other people's mothers came out to greet me. First Richard Cohen's painful post about the sad situation and state of mind of his mother. Then a new post from Pat at Other Plans, who makes regular reference to the elderly mother who shares her home. This time it was about her mother's sheer frustration and anger from knowing about the loss of her memory.
Elaine at Kalilily Time writes regularly about aspects of her life as she shares a home with a mother on the brink of senility. All these people write with enormous insight, spelling out the sense of frustration and helplessness but still somehow maintaining a kindness and a sensitivity. I thank them for sharing personal experiences which on the whole are both difficult and depressing.
None of these mothers, including mine, can ever be part of these discussions, but I imagine that each one of them would be glad that their stories are being told - maybe to offer solace, understanding and empathy wherever in the world it might currently be needed.
On a brighter note, I moved on to read at Time Goes By about Ronni's participation as one of the 'naked lady' panelists in the California BlogHers Conference in July. I am sure all the highly inspired female bloggers in attendance will have a ball. I hope that the outcome will be lots of fascinating posts to share some of the fun with us all.
Reading about those other moms was very interesting. Thanks for the links. It seems like something about the mid-eighties gets a lot of people. I have a couple of friends with mothers just at the same age in more or less the same condition.
Posted by: pat | June 06, 2005 at 11:30 AM