If you are wondering why I think an update on here is appropriate....I used to be a regular on here...
This year...what a year...regarding Dad, things have not changed that much...(the first time in 10yrs!) except that he has been very slowly now continuing to fade away....although some days he does come back with a vengeance!
As my new career (started in February 2006) has captured my interest, provided me with new and exciting challenges, I have found that after 10yrs of my world being just Dad, Dad, Dad...I too have begun to drift away (although some days I too come back to the world of dementia and Dad with a vengeance! lol)
I don't know if it is really the career, or whether the career has become my excuse, but something in me seems to have decided that it is time to live again, time to try to let go of the grief, time to do what I had meant to do when life seemed to be just starting for me at 22yrs of age, but what got put off as a result of this tragic disease.
As the year has passed, I have found that my religious daily visits have wained to every second day, then as I noticed no significant change in Dad, and no apparent hurt showing in his eyes, the visits became weekly and sometimes not at all. Some days I have been disgusted with myself, I have become like the family members of all those other people in the home who never get visitors. How could I do this to my father? Yet my brain seems to have taken over and is refusing to listen to my heart. Maybe its self-preservation, maybe I just like to tell myself that. Yet I find my subconscious is blocking him out, I get home in the evening and am stunned to realise I had forgotten about even thinking of visiting...and I guess I've decided to stop fighting that, evil though that may make me be. I've tried being a saint for so long and frankly I kinda think its overrated..Oh I can be a shocker!
I joke about it, but in some ways I have been wondering, I have been wondering if my attempts to be saintly in a way have had an unsaintly result. I suspect my regular visits are prolonging Dad's life, which is wonderful if that is what he wants but terrible if he's only doing it for my sake...fighting the good fight, so that his daughter doesn't cry. I want my Daddy to let go, if that is what he wants...Oh I don't understand any of this. The arguments in my head are enough to give someone dementia!
So I have been slowly letting him go....don't get me wrong, there's a whole other side of me that things this is wrong, but I have been trying to ignore that voice, as it has had its time, and its kind of like enough already Natalie. Dad was always a practical man, he would have so objected to me not living life.
As I mentioned in another post on here, I have even made the huge decision to leave, to move away 2000kms. I suspect people think I am running away, but I have thought about it a lot and to me it just seems like it is time. When I mentioned this to my husband, whether he thought I was just running away, he said if I didnt make this move, I would be running away from life itself...
The surprising consequence (?) of my decision, although I have been assured that this event is not actually because of my move...is that my father is actually going to be taken home. After years now of me being sad and angry about my father having to live in a home, in the city where i live rather than near where he used to live, where all of his friends and family were close by it turns out that the moment I decide to leave, my mother has decided that she is not happy about the care he is receiving in the home, feels that she is now able to cope with looking after him again, has put a plan into action to use the money saved by not having to pay for the costs of the home, to hire in-house helpers to help her care for Dad. So it seems that as I let go, my father gets to be returned to where his heart truly lies anyway, his home town, his people, his friends....and that makes me happy.
Funny how things happen.
P.S. Despite my absences from posting as frequently as I used to, I do think of you all regularly and come in and every now and then to catch up on your lives, my love goes out to those of you who have now lost your loved ones and those that continue to be carers.
This year...what a year...regarding Dad, things have not changed that much...(the first time in 10yrs!) except that he has been very slowly now continuing to fade away....although some days he does come back with a vengeance!
As my new career (started in February 2006) has captured my interest, provided me with new and exciting challenges, I have found that after 10yrs of my world being just Dad, Dad, Dad...I too have begun to drift away (although some days I too come back to the world of dementia and Dad with a vengeance! lol)
I don't know if it is really the career, or whether the career has become my excuse, but something in me seems to have decided that it is time to live again, time to try to let go of the grief, time to do what I had meant to do when life seemed to be just starting for me at 22yrs of age, but what got put off as a result of this tragic disease.
As the year has passed, I have found that my religious daily visits have wained to every second day, then as I noticed no significant change in Dad, and no apparent hurt showing in his eyes, the visits became weekly and sometimes not at all. Some days I have been disgusted with myself, I have become like the family members of all those other people in the home who never get visitors. How could I do this to my father? Yet my brain seems to have taken over and is refusing to listen to my heart. Maybe its self-preservation, maybe I just like to tell myself that. Yet I find my subconscious is blocking him out, I get home in the evening and am stunned to realise I had forgotten about even thinking of visiting...and I guess I've decided to stop fighting that, evil though that may make me be. I've tried being a saint for so long and frankly I kinda think its overrated..Oh I can be a shocker!
I joke about it, but in some ways I have been wondering, I have been wondering if my attempts to be saintly in a way have had an unsaintly result. I suspect my regular visits are prolonging Dad's life, which is wonderful if that is what he wants but terrible if he's only doing it for my sake...fighting the good fight, so that his daughter doesn't cry. I want my Daddy to let go, if that is what he wants...Oh I don't understand any of this. The arguments in my head are enough to give someone dementia!
So I have been slowly letting him go....don't get me wrong, there's a whole other side of me that things this is wrong, but I have been trying to ignore that voice, as it has had its time, and its kind of like enough already Natalie. Dad was always a practical man, he would have so objected to me not living life.
As I mentioned in another post on here, I have even made the huge decision to leave, to move away 2000kms. I suspect people think I am running away, but I have thought about it a lot and to me it just seems like it is time.
When I mentioned this to my husband, whether he thought I was just running away, he said if I didnt make this move, I would be running away from life itself...The surprising consequence (?) of my decision, although I have been assured that this event is not actually because of my move...is that my father is actually going to be taken home. After years now of me being sad and angry about my father having to live in a home, in the city where i live rather than near where he used to live, where all of his friends and family were close by it turns out that the moment I decide to leave, my mother has decided that she is not happy about the care he is receiving in the home, feels that she is now able to cope with looking after him again, has put a plan into action to use the money saved by not having to pay for the costs of the home, to hire in-house helpers to help her care for Dad. So it seems that as I let go, my father gets to be returned to where his heart truly lies anyway, his home town, his people, his friends....and that makes me happy.
Funny how things happen.
P.S. Despite my absences from posting as frequently as I used to, I do think of you all regularly and come in and every now and then to catch up on your lives, my love goes out to those of you who have now lost your loved ones and those that continue to be carers.
