Saturday, March 27, 2004
Continuing, somewhat later...
The immediately previoius post is how it began with the PT. In part while she was working on my mother, in part while we were sitting out my mother's from-the-gut reaction to yesterday's treatment. Before she got to the part where she would have told me some version of the airplane safety story though, she favored me with a poignant litany of her own. In few words, while she was talking about her child, who is presently taking care of her mother, she mentioned something about her mother's condition: A lot of pain that can't seem to be addressed (ah, Ancient Territory is a foreign country) and how the PT is just ending the intense years of nurturing her son and now...her mother...she didn't say much. She didn't have to.
I immediately stepped in. I know, I said. I'll tell you, if I had spent the previous 30 years of my life nurturing a family only to find myself facing another 10 to 20 that would be even more intense I don't know if I'd do it. She looked at me from an angle. I told her that this is my first nurturing stint and that's why, even though I sometimes think I'm overwhelmed, I never truly am. I haven't been doing this all my life, I tell her, so I think it's easier for me. In fact, I confessed, I consciously avoided nurturing of almost any type for years. I often wonder, I tell her, if I had been married with a family, how Mom's life would be, now: If she would be with one of her daughters' families, if she would be in a nursing home, if she would be here...it's lucky, I tell the PT, that, of four daughters, my mother had one who would lead a life that allowed her to be fully available to her as she aged.
I had no advice for her. I honestly don't know what to tell people who wonder if they can handle yet more caretaking and caretaking of a more tragic kind; caretaking in which the death of the cared for is expected during the life of the nurturer.
I noticed, though, as I once again performed my schtick, some defensiveness on my part even though I hadn't been challenged by the PT. A tart wagging of my head and shoulders. I remember saying at one point, "I didn't come to nurturing until long after I came to know myself well, so I don't feel as though I'm losing myself. I know who I am. I can't lose myself in taking care of my mother."
Thinking back on it, I must have sounded a bit like the lady protests too much. I was protesting, but, you know, not protesting what she'll think. She'll think I'm protesting the possibility that I need regular breaks, room to breathe as myself...when, in fact, I'm protesting that being a later-in-life first time nurturer is a different experience from taking on more nurturing just as you thought you'd be wrapping it up. For me nurturing is an addition. For those who have been nurturing all their lives, nurturing may have a pronounced negative component.
I don't know what to tell those of my peers who are finding themselves having to negotiate more intense nurturing than they've done in a long time and for many more years. I can see, from this perspective, the need for professionals; the need for all members of a household to become active in nurturing The Ancient One; the need for trust and risk assessment of professional options. I think if I were in this position I would probably feel as though I was totin' a bale o' guilt.
One thing I can say from my perspective: My feeling is that the best caretakers for an aging relative are someone within the familiar family who has led a life similar to mine or a couple who were not involved in hands on parenting.
Later in our conversation, in reaction to what I said as I explained that I'm pleased I have a chance to do this, the PT talked a bit about how she has noticed that there is something about people who haven't done intensive nurturing...that they have less regard for the need and time of others; that no matter how good they are, they are missing a certain depth of understanding about life and other people that only comes from intense, long term nurturing.
Before I began nurturing my mother, I wouldn't have questioned what she said. I would have thought that what she was alluding to was a simple difference of experience, a quantitative rather than qualitative difference.
Now, though, I see that there is a qualitative difference in the perception of those who have been or are committed nurturers. It is not just a difference I've noticed since beginning my own nurturing sojourn. I noticed it before in others. I think it is the quality that attracts me to some people and allows me to simply shrug by others.
I often imagine myself, quite without conscious determination, as similar to the bachelor son, the one who traveled, who read, who studied, who pursued a variety of careers and affairs, was perhaps even an avocational inventor or artist, spending a certain portion of decades of his middle years caring intently and intensely for an aging parent...slipping in quietly, allowing a gradual diminution of the parent's independence, a growing comfort in leaning on the son. With apologies to Joseph Campbell, this is the archetype with which I identify and from which I derive inspiration.
Later.
I immediately stepped in. I know, I said. I'll tell you, if I had spent the previous 30 years of my life nurturing a family only to find myself facing another 10 to 20 that would be even more intense I don't know if I'd do it. She looked at me from an angle. I told her that this is my first nurturing stint and that's why, even though I sometimes think I'm overwhelmed, I never truly am. I haven't been doing this all my life, I tell her, so I think it's easier for me. In fact, I confessed, I consciously avoided nurturing of almost any type for years. I often wonder, I tell her, if I had been married with a family, how Mom's life would be, now: If she would be with one of her daughters' families, if she would be in a nursing home, if she would be here...it's lucky, I tell the PT, that, of four daughters, my mother had one who would lead a life that allowed her to be fully available to her as she aged.
I had no advice for her. I honestly don't know what to tell people who wonder if they can handle yet more caretaking and caretaking of a more tragic kind; caretaking in which the death of the cared for is expected during the life of the nurturer.
I noticed, though, as I once again performed my schtick, some defensiveness on my part even though I hadn't been challenged by the PT. A tart wagging of my head and shoulders. I remember saying at one point, "I didn't come to nurturing until long after I came to know myself well, so I don't feel as though I'm losing myself. I know who I am. I can't lose myself in taking care of my mother."
Thinking back on it, I must have sounded a bit like the lady protests too much. I was protesting, but, you know, not protesting what she'll think. She'll think I'm protesting the possibility that I need regular breaks, room to breathe as myself...when, in fact, I'm protesting that being a later-in-life first time nurturer is a different experience from taking on more nurturing just as you thought you'd be wrapping it up. For me nurturing is an addition. For those who have been nurturing all their lives, nurturing may have a pronounced negative component.
I don't know what to tell those of my peers who are finding themselves having to negotiate more intense nurturing than they've done in a long time and for many more years. I can see, from this perspective, the need for professionals; the need for all members of a household to become active in nurturing The Ancient One; the need for trust and risk assessment of professional options. I think if I were in this position I would probably feel as though I was totin' a bale o' guilt.
One thing I can say from my perspective: My feeling is that the best caretakers for an aging relative are someone within the familiar family who has led a life similar to mine or a couple who were not involved in hands on parenting.
Later in our conversation, in reaction to what I said as I explained that I'm pleased I have a chance to do this, the PT talked a bit about how she has noticed that there is something about people who haven't done intensive nurturing...that they have less regard for the need and time of others; that no matter how good they are, they are missing a certain depth of understanding about life and other people that only comes from intense, long term nurturing.
Before I began nurturing my mother, I wouldn't have questioned what she said. I would have thought that what she was alluding to was a simple difference of experience, a quantitative rather than qualitative difference.
Now, though, I see that there is a qualitative difference in the perception of those who have been or are committed nurturers. It is not just a difference I've noticed since beginning my own nurturing sojourn. I noticed it before in others. I think it is the quality that attracts me to some people and allows me to simply shrug by others.
I often imagine myself, quite without conscious determination, as similar to the bachelor son, the one who traveled, who read, who studied, who pursued a variety of careers and affairs, was perhaps even an avocational inventor or artist, spending a certain portion of decades of his middle years caring intently and intensely for an aging parent...slipping in quietly, allowing a gradual diminution of the parent's independence, a growing comfort in leaning on the son. With apologies to Joseph Campbell, this is the archetype with which I identify and from which I derive inspiration.
Later.
