Unexpected Acceptance
There is nothing so hard that there is not some good that can come of it. And one thing that is gleaming brightly in the greyish cloud of these last few months is discovering (again) how much we are all in things together. There is nothing I have shared, either here or in the 3-D world, not about moving, nor sadness, nor a lack of desire to create, nor my mother’s Alzheimers, that has not been met with compassion and cries of “Oh I know just what you mean.” This blog has at times been more a mommy-blog than it is right now. Then too, I mostly found acceptance, laughter and camaraderie of the sort that made it easier to go on. That I am not the only crazy lady out there allows me to be easier on myself.
Yet it is astonishing to me (which it clearly should not be) that the more I talk about my mother’s plight, the more people I discover who have been or who are in the same boat. The comfort that brings is huge. That this is not some untrodden, silent path but a road many of us are walking together. (Sorry about that random, unprovoked metaphor change. It’s like the obligatory half-tone key change in an eighties ballad.) I suspect, since something like half of people over 85 have some degree of Alzheimers, that it is a road that more of us will land on in one way or the other. This may be scary — but it is also connecting. What my mother is going through, what her family is going through, is well-trodden territory. All around me are stories, advice, compassion, connection –
And this is why, in the end, I blog. To connect. And I am so very very grateful that all of you are there to connect to.
Isn’t amazing how that connection becomes the best thing about blogging? I started because I wanted to write, and I find I can’t stop because I’d miss not the writing, which I can still do, but the connection.
I’m glad to hear you’ve felt supported and understood.
it is the most amazingly wonderful thing about the blogging community, the connections and support are indescribably beautiful … xox
What is it–that makes our burden less– when we find others have carried the same weight? I’m not sure, but like you, I am thankful for it.
Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.
Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted,
And human love will be seen at its height.
Live in fragments no longer.
Only connect…
–E.M. Forster, Howards End
Way to connect, Stuntmother!
When I was 19, I worked at a nursing home in which a wing was dedicated to dementia/Alzheimer’s. A gentleman, very old with veins like rivers, was quite afflicted. Rarely speaking, he made little sense at all when he did. But one day, I found myself in his room for a quarterly update.
I asked him, “Do you remember your wife’s name?”
He said, “At the racetrack, like a brilliant star.”
There will always be a connect, no matter how severe the autism, no matter how fragile person with cerebral palsy, no matter the twists of memory and thoughts of one suffering with Alzheimer’s.
Being heard … in blogland or earth land … that provides the connect …
Loud and clear
I love the fact that we can get so much surprising support from complete strangers, who share our burdens, & experiences.
My MIL, who had Alzhiemers, & had not recognized anyone for years, saw our son, & greeted him by name! Everyone was stunned. Small threads seem to remain, to reappear unexpectedly.