One Week

It’s been a week since Mom came home, and I’m exhausted. Physically, mentally, emotionally.

It’s so hard to watch the woman that gave birth to you, the woman who raised you to be a badass, the woman who helped you muddle through your own unexpected motherhood….it’s hard to see her completely laid bare.

Every two hours, we turn and we clean. Even overnight. My back is sore. My heart is sore. My brain overloaded with so many emotions.

It’s different this time. It’s final this time.

I’m lucky to have a partner in this, my godsend of a husband. He gets up at 2 am to help me clean. He’s seen more of his mother-in-law than a man should ever see. But, he does it with a smile. And every time he walks in the room, Mom laughs at him.

She’s happy. She lives in each second, unaware of the last one or the next one. Me — I’m not sure what I am yet. Not unhappy, not happy. Hovering somewhere in between.

I’m thinking of keeping an online journal of my chronicles in this stage of caregiving. The hardest stage. The most difficult stage. The all-consuming stage.

When I write, I feel less alone. I feel the weariness pour out of myself and onto the keyboard; hoping it will stick there.

This week was so heavy; leaning into being a hospice caregiver, mourning my dad’s death anniversary. I miss him. I miss her. I miss the me I was before I became a caregiver.

Yet, I feel a strength that I never knew was in me. A strength I got from this 100-pound woman lying in a hospital bed in my home; eating baby food and wearing diapers. When I look at her, even through the frailty, I see that strength.

One week.