Finding Joy in Unexpected Places

In my last post I told you about my mom's declining health and my plans to walk beside her every step of the way. Well, I did just that. I walked her journey with her to the end, which was May 12th, Mother's Day. I have struggled to wrap my mind around the past four to five months. It is almost like a horrible dream that I have woken up from and I am just waiting for her to call me and everything be the same as it was before this all took place. That hasn't happened, and reality is slowly sinking in. I'm searcing for my new normal. My normal had become life as a wife, mom and full time caregiver. It definitely changes you.

I'll fill you in briefly on the past few months, then share with you some things I learned.

We had moved in with her when I posted last. We stayed there with her until the latter part of March. Her house worked well for a while, but it was so difficult keeping a normal routine and also not feeling like we were on top of each other. We had no idea how long she would last with her condition, but we knew we needed space and we needed to be in our own home to make the adjustment a little easier for all 6 of us. We decided to enclose our garage to make 3 rooms for our girls. Yes, I know 3 rooms sounds crazy, but our house was built in the 80's when big garages were the thing. Our plan was to have rooms added for our girls and put my mom in the two existing rooms, one for her bedroom and one as a living/sitting area for her. We didn't want to wait for the remodel to finish, so we moved our youngest into our room and her room became my moms. By this time she had a hospital bed, but I also brought in some of her own things to make her feel more at home. She seemed happy with her new place, and she loved being here with our family. We were in here tight, but we knew the garage was in progress, so we would spread out soon.

My mom continued to decline quickly. I mentioned in my previous post that I couldn't keep up. She quickly went from a walker to a wheelchair to only being able to get up using a lift to being completely bed bound. Fortunately she was not completely bed bound for very long. Once she reachd that point she declined even more quickly to the very end. The entire experience was unreal. So many emotions flooded me continually. I had so much frustration and anger toward her doctor who did not want to diagnos her or even seem to care to help with the problems she was having. I was grieving the entire 4 months because I could see she was declining and our time together was limited. Not to mention no one wants to see their own mother in this condition. I fought anxiety because I was pulled in every direction trying to take care of her and also be a mom, and didn't feel I was doing either of those to the best of my ability. So, add feelings of inadequecy on top of that which all adds up to

a lot of emotions!! But.....then there was JOY! As difficult as it all was I knew I was doing what I needed to do and what I thought was right, so I experienced a great amount of joy which was a blessing I will cherish from here on out.

Here are some things I learned more about while being my mom's caregiver:

1) Life is short and temporary. If you want help putting life into perspective, just sit and watch someone who knows their life is coming to an end. Watch how their journey unfolds and listen to what they talk about. It can be a constant reminder of what is important. You will start to notice things that once seemed major to you become less and less important. My mom talked about her health. She wanted her ability to walk and care for herself back so badly. She also talked about her hope. She had hope of a home in Heaven. She has been waiting for this reward. It was coming sooner than she had hoped, but she embraced it. She spoke of the things she looked forward to: seeing her Father and those who had gone before her.

2) Priorities are important and become more clear when faced with major life events. Our priorities keep us focused and in line with our goals. What we put as our top priority says a lot about who we are and what our goals are. They aren't set in stone though. We can always rearrange them when we see they are out of line with our character or our goals.

3) It's not about stuff. It's about faith. "Where your treasure is there your heart will be also". That's probably a familiar scripture to you. When you watch someone come to the end of their life you see that faith outweighs material belongings by such a long shot. We moved my mom in with us and just brought a few things to make her feel like she was home. The rest is in storage, and her house was listed and we had an offer that same day. In the end, it wasn't about the things she had accumulated. It was about her faith and the treasures she had stored up in Heaven.

4) Children are more flexible than most of us think and can actually teach us about serving others with compassion. One of my goals when taking care of my mom was to teach my girls how I wanted to be taken care of one day. Many times children are protected from these major life events in hopes to keep them from having to experience "adult situations" and having to grow up too fast. We did protect our girls from some things happening, but for the most part they were right in the middle of it. It was no doubt a huge adjustment, but understanding that life is not all about them, they took it in stride and accepted the changes. I looked for opportunties to teach them all to serve and show compassion. I watched them be flexible to change and interact with compassion toward my mom, and as a result they taught me.

5) Joy comes from serving others. I am thankful for the opportunity to serve my mom by being her caretaker. Was it exhausting and overwhelming? You better believe it was!! There were days I didn't think I could keep going. I did though, and I was always amazed at the inner strength I would find to push through and the joy and fulfillment I found as the end result. We were put on this earth to serve, not to be served. I promise you will find great joy and fulfillment when you seek out opportunties to serve and care for others.