It Takes a Village

Think you can handle dementia on your own?  Be a caregiver and not have support for you?  Think again. 

We have found we needed to pull out all the stops.  Mom’s hairdresser, her friends, her neighbors, neighbors who are still her friends who moved away years ago, her church, bank managers, her attorney of a gazillion years, her financial planner and many others.

Then there’s our friends, family members, also, for me – yoga, running, hiking, meditation, coffee – chicory or a really good latte – but gotta be a dark roast, tea (lately I’m stuck on rooibos chai), tortilla chips and salsa and homemade guac, listening to Marianne Williamson inspirational stuff, photography (iPhone takes awesome photos!) and writing. 

We learned early on not only did we need the help of others to help out mom, we need the help of friends and family to wade through the mire of dementia and for our own sanity. 

There are books and blogs about the logistical stuff on dementia, not so much around how emotions come out of nowhere.  I would love to read ‘you will be blindsided by your sadness and grief.  Tears over nothing, or something big.  Sometimes you may be quick to anger, when you thought you outgrew that.  You may find as you work through all the crap emotions, you embrace life and live in the moment, because you realize there is nothing else but the moment.  This is the gift dementia brings to the person who has it.’

No, I’m not some wise guru.  I learned that through my village.   Through my peeps.  MANY hours on the phone, texts, emails….my makeshift family listened to me, sat with my pain and guided me. 

Sometimes I wonder if the village we’ve created is for her or for us.  No matter, we will get through this together.