Daily Dose from the Pod: On Learning To Let the Elderly Be Who They Are

Raising an elderly person is hard. You want them to be as they were, while all the while they’re growing backwards.

As my mother began to forget things, such as what happened the other day, I would remind her. I would even remind her that I was reminding her, as in “No no, remember? It’s ….”

For years it went like this until it dawned on me: Who wants to be contradicted all the time? Who wants the constant evidence that they’re forgetting?

Mind you, I wasn’t doing it to be mean. I was trying to grab Mom by the hand so instead of stepping onto that crumbling cliff she could stay with me on the safe and stable land.

Then I learned to accept that the cliff IS crumbling. And that it’s actually not a cliff at all. That it’s more like a gently rolling hill that we can decide to tumble down together. And we can get back up and go down it again, and again and again.

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A year or so ago, Mom and I began doing Liberty Puzzles - these delicious wooden laser-cut marvels with pieces that fit together so satisfyingly and whose occasionally placed whimsical shapes are works of art. I’ve bought probably twenty-five of them. Used to be I’d put the ones we’d finished on the front porch and advertise a free giveaway on Nextdoor all the while buying us more. Then I bought up their entire “Silver Edition” - featuring bigger pieces and fewer of them. Then at some point I realized novelty no longer mattered. That we can do the puzzles over again as if for the first time. That they are now hers to complete.

Of course you can take a piece and figure out where it goes. Let her do it. Do something in parallel. Look at your phone if you have to. Let her do it in her own time.

Another thing I’ve learned is that sometimes I may need to look off into the distance and take a deep breath and maybe even wipe my eyes before we roll down this hill together, our hands intertwined.

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Are you raising an elderly person? If so, how’s it going?

xo

Screenshot from someone who took it from E. H. Sheperd

🤗 Here’s a hug for anyone with an elderly loved one, or for the elderly loved one if that’s you!

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