Oh, one more thing...
...before I forget. Today, while driving around on errands and letting my mind wander, I suddenly realized that I am not just taking care of my mother, I am taking care of my father's best friend for most of his life, the woman who allowed him to be a father, his lover as well as his wife, and not only the passion of his life, but his partner in creating his four other passions. My father was nothing if not a man fundamentally devoted to family.
    Realizing this caught my heart by surprise and caused it to gasp, and correlates to another wandering-mind-in-wandering-car episode I had a few weeks ago: For absolutely no reason, because, although I can't remember what thoughts were wandering through my mind at the time, I do remember that none of them had to do with caretaking, my mother, family, family history, or gratitude, for that matter, I was, well, the only word to explain the feeling is "enveloped", gently, sneakily, like a slowly encroaching then receding presence, by an awareness that Dad was, during those transported moments, thanking me for being with Mom and looking after her, and, he added, doing this so well. None of this was in words, but its lingual translation is unmistakable.
    Most of the time I believe in life of some kind after 'death' for each of us entities. Sometimes, though, I doubt it, sometimes I even hope for none, so I am always skeptical of such experiences. I follow them, give myself up to them, allow my spontaneous understanding of them to be as open and automatic as possible, and yet a sly part of my brain is always looking for other explanations, usually having to do with my unconscious processes vomiting up something of my own creation. Today, though, as I contemplated the enhanced identity of the woman whose hand I now securely hold and will continue to hold until her death, it seemed to me that this realization also came from somewhere out of myself. Wishful thinking? Maybe. But I think these experiences, regardless of their origin, have completely benevolent consequences for my continuing relationship with Mom and to her life.
    And, I suppose, I am a person of sentiment, deep, sometimes profound, sometimes ridiculous sentiment. Always have been, but the nuclearity of menopause adds a density which seems to allow, I think, although I haven't done a definitive study, for more of such seemingly out-of-ego experiences that, in fact, may be so in-the-ego that we are incapable of understanding this.
    Still, I savor these experiences. They add a glistening element to the life I am leading, now, with my mother.
- posted by gail rae @ 18:44   email...this post