A Year Without Caregiving

We're just a few days past one year since we left Grandma at the hospital, and just a few days from one year since her death. It's been a time for a bit of reflection, and a few people have asked what the year has been like. That's hard to answer, because everything is so very different, but here's a look into what it's like, through some largely random observations.

Time

There's an odd time warp. The broad sweep of time seems to pass faster, because you're not trapped in the mire of a seemingly interminable illness. But each day actually seems to pass more slowly. On a normal day with Grandma, I would wake up, do something for a couple hours, and then the PSW came. An hour more, and then lunch. A couple hours, and Grandma would be trolling for a snack. An hour more, and it was time to make dinner. It felt difficult to really sit and get things done.

Toilet paper

We go through between a quarter and a third of the toilet paper we used to go through, and there are still four people in the house!

Fridge space

Take out a pitcher of milk, cranberry juice, and orange juice, as well as several containers of yogurt, and you'll be amazed what fits in the fridge.

Church

Grandma needed to be somewhere familiar, and mostly objected to staying for anything more than main service, and sometimes a little bit of potluck. Now, we've been able to join a church plant, and we can go to Bible class, and main service, and potluck, and hang out afterwards if we want to.

Spontaneity

Want to go grocery shopping? Do it. Have an errand to run? That's cool. Want to tag along on someone else's errand? Why not?

Peace

We sleep at night, and it's mostly restful. We make plans, without worrying about how we'll arrange Grandma care. There are no accusations that we're causing our neighbours to sin by a dementia-riddled centenarian, and there are no accusations that we are treating that centenarian poorly by toxic people.

Dynamic

Grandma is no longer a troubled and troublesome ward. My Dad is free to remember his Mum, and good times of long ago. And though it's taking me much longer, even I have finally fished some good memories of Grandma out the murky depths of my brain. It's not only all about being a caregiver, though I don't know if I'll ever reach a point where that isn't my defining relationship with her. And so, in a funny way, we have her back more now in death than we did in the final months of her life.