Parents & Children AND Children & Parents – from the protection-giver to the protection-seeker – the cycle goes on and on…
And it gets chaotic and hurtful when the roles get reversed!
This is what happened to me. It is often said that the progenitors become ‘child-like’ in their ‘closing years’. I was well prepared for this to happen, but little did I know, it is going to be much harder to take care of them than I could ever think in the wildest of my imagination.
When you are faced with adversity, you stay sturdy but when your loved ones must bear them, you break down and your sturdiness slips away just as the sand slips off your hands.
My father’s demise was much too sudden for my family to come to terms with. After his departure to his heavenly abode, everything came onto my mother. It was difficult to take care of me and my family.
My mother was the one who faced the wrath of the situation and went into shock for quite some time. Her health begun to diminish as the days passed and we were now concerned about her wellbeing.
Some days later, the doctors told us that she is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. This felt like a sharp stab in my chest. I had two little sisters to fend for and with my ‘Dadda’ leaving us, I didn’t know for how long I could keep it up with a service class ‘shoe-stringed’ budget.
As the months passed, it was arduous to keep up with my mother’s memory and reminding her who IS she and who we ARE!
We hired a nurse to look after her, but my mother’s memory was waning way rapidly and it now became immensely gruelling. One night as I was scrolling through my Netflix, I saw a trailer of the movie ‘First 50 Dates’. It fascinated me because the female lead character of the movie suffered from short term memory loss and her husband had made a 10-minute-long tape for her to watch as soon as she wakes up every morning.
I was awe-struck by the idea and tried doing the same for my mother. She now spends 8 minutes and 35 seconds watching the video that I made for her to refresh her memory.
I will not say that this IS ‘the solution’ or it might work for everyone, but it helped me and her a lot now.
Note: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to a person living or otherwise may be purely coincidental
