Losing Elderly Parents

PREFACE

It is only in recent times that I have realised how much time has passed since I began writing about Losing Elderly Parents after the deaths of mine in May 2009 and September 2010 respectively.  It is difficult to believe that it is now 2016!

I am anxious to keep the original order in which I wrote the initial posts as I think the first year after my father’s death in 2010 was crucially important for me. However, I also want to stress the point that I have continued to write about this topic in the intervening years and the full list of posts that I have categorised under the heading can be found here:

SECTION ONE

INTRODUCTION

Both my parents died within the last 18 months and I have started to reach out from the domain of  ‘me’  losing  ‘my’ parents to the more general question of what is involved in coping with losing elderly parents.

This process has brought me into a world of  books, journals, organisations, new terminology, new thoughts and a recognition that there are layers and dimensions to this whole process that I hadn’t been able to even begin to reach.

So, I would like to use my writings on this site to share what I find in this particular part of the journey and I would be very interested in other people’s insights, be they from personal or professional experience.

For me the concept of ‘losing’ parents relates to the time before they die and the time afterward.  Like most ‘children’, I expected my parents to die before I did, but I now realise that the process of ‘losing’  varies considerably, especially in terms of one’s awarness, acceptance and, indeed, the timing involved.

Also, what is ‘elderly?’   Life expectancy has changed considerably over the last century and now it is not uncommon for people to live beyond a hundred years. In my case, my mother was 88 when she died in 2009 and my father was 91 when he passed last September.

In my next post, I would like to write about the impact which Cicero’s book, On a Life Well Spent, had on my overall perception of  aging and dying in ‘old age.’

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SECTION  TWO

HOW CICERO CHANGED MY VIEWS ON DYING IN OLD AGE

Cicero’s book, On a Life Well Spent, which was written around 50 BC , played a huge role in changing my views on ageing and dying in old age. It was a change which I certainly never anticipated and, unlike so many other books, the effects have lasted and, indeed grown, since I read it first about 18 months ago.

I read On a Life Well Spent, for the first time, about 2 months after my mother died  and 16 months before my father died.

I was particularly taken by Cicero’s view of life in seasonal terms and I quote:

The stages of life are fixed; nature is the same in all, and goes on in a plain and steady course: every part of life, like the year, has its peculiar season….. As it is with the fruits of trees and of the earth, seasons should be allowed for their springing, growing, ripening and at last to drop.

Reading this I came to see my father, who was 90, as being in the Winter of his life and, on reflection, saw that my mother who was 88 when she  died as having been in the Winter of her life when she had passed. Before she had died, I was forever in what I now see as ‘crisis/ red alert mode’, thinking cure, longevity and never accepting the inevitability of death.

For me, Cicero’s  perspective on life began to  impose a natural order on what seemed  like turmoil and chaos.  He describes death in old age in the following tranquil terms:

Old men expire of themselves, like a flame when all its fuel is spent. And as unripe fruit requires some force to part it from its native bough;  but when it comes to full maturity, it drops of itself  without any hand to touch it: so young people die by something violent or unnatural, but the old by mere ripeness. The thoughts of which to me are now become so agreeable that the nearer I draw to my end, it seems like discovering the land at sea, that, after the tossings of a tedious and stormy voyage, will yield me a safe and quiet harbour.

 The impact of these words changed my whole view of my father’s ageing and impending death. I accepted that he was dying and saw this as being as natural as the sun setting or the ripe apple falling from the tree.  In practical terms, I saw my role as being to enhance the quality of the time he had left. Part of this meant allowing him to dictate the pace, be in control.

In terms of our father/daughter relationship, it meant letting him dictate how he wanted this to go. There were times when he very much wanted to be ‘father’ and ‘grandfather’ and pass on his wisdom. At other times, he wanted me to take responsibility but rather than assuming this, as I had tended to do before reading Cicero, I would double check with him.

Another important development, which arose from reading Cicero, and accepting that my father was ‘dying’, was that I learned to take his lead about whether and when he wanted to talk about dying. This meant being very tuned in and making sure that I didn’t brush aside his wishes to talk about dying and death. This was something that I had tended to do with my mother.

Crucial, too, was my much more relaxed position in relation to ‘letting’ my father die. Just as one would not try and superglue a ripe apple to a tree, I came to realise that ‘letting nature take its course’ meant allowing father to dictate in terms of  whether, and how much, he ate and drank.  This wasn’t always easy but it soon became very clear to me that I wasn’t necessarily doing a ‘better job’ if I somehow managed to get him to drink an extra glass of water when he made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want it.

In hindsight, I feel that Cicero’s philosophy undoubtedly helped me to come to terms with the deaths of both my parents. It has also made me very aware of the extent to which, as a society, we have moved away from the ‘natural’ flow of life and the different seasons because of urban living.

Many  of the ‘ children’ of elderly parents will themselves be in the late summer or  autumn of their own lives. Reading Cicero, makes one so much more aware of the aspects of these seasons and also, indeed, the beauty of winter.

Safe and Quiet Harbour

Posted January 20th, 2011

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SECTION THREE

MEMORYBRIDGES AND QUALITY COMMUNICATION

If Cicero’s On a Life Well Spent was the book which made a lasting impact on me in relation to coping with losing my parents, I would say that the website that captivated and inspired me most during the last months of my father’s life was http://www.memorybridge.org.

My father had significant problems with his short-term memory and this was compounded in his last eight months, especially, by declining energy levels. However, he craved companionship and meaningful communication. He had always been a great conversationalist, listener, and story-teller and had a great sense of humour as well as excellent analytical skills and was one of those people who could weigh up situations wisely.

Just as Father longed to be able to connect, being able to have quality communication with him was incredibly important to me. Both he and I knew that he did not have long to live and we wanted to be able to make the very most of the time we had left.

The Memory Bridge Foundation was set up with the very goal of  highlighting  the importance of quality connection for people with Alheimer’s Disease and dementia. Here is how it describes its mission:

Everyone, regardless of their degree of mental sharpness,
 
needs companionship, not only to physically survive
 
but also to live emotionally
 

MemoryBridge creates programs that connect people with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias to family, friends, and other people in their local community. We also create programs that reveal to the general public the depths of memory that dementia does not erase.

Our goal is to create a global community of people who, like us, are learning to listen to people with dementia for what they have to teach us about our own humanity.

The Memory Bridge Foundation places huge emphasis on the fact that people with Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia can and want to connect to other people, and that that connection can be immensely fulfilling for both the person with dementia and those who take the time to find the best ways of  communicating with them.

I would say that much of the communication I had with my father in his last months had more depth and significance to me than at other times in my life, times when both of us were busy and probably taking each other too much for granted.

For those months, we worked hard at connecting and it was strange how the narrower Father’s life became, in terms of being confined to bed, the more the world seemed to open up. He talked a lot about his childhood and told me things about his parents, my grandparents, that I had never known. He also gave me insights into his percpective on what it had been like to be ‘father’ to me when I was growing up and indeed how it still was to be ‘father’ to me , and ‘grandfather’ to my son.

I found myself bringing the world into his room – flowers from his garden that he had tended with such enjoyment; photographs of places which he loved; music, expecially of singers whose concerts, he and I had attended together; poetry which both of us loved but had never even talked about before, poems like Wordsworth’s The Daffodils and I Remember, I Remember by Thomas Hood.

Music and poetry became very special in our relationship toward the very end and it was incredible how much peace came, for both of us, in listening to music, for example, knowing that this was shared time and shared enjoyment.

Reading the contributions to the Memory Bridge Foundation’s Forum, it is very clear that many, many other people have had these types of connections.  The work of the Foundation with young people in building relationships with people with dementia is work which has the potential to make huge changes in commonly held negative percpetions and virtual hopelessness  around diseases, such as Alzheimer’s Disease.

Posted January 21st, 2011

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 SECTION FOUR

MEMORY BRIDGES IN PRACTICE

 The concept of  ‘memory bridges,’ which I wrote about in an earlier post, very seldom leaves me.  It was brought to the fore again yesterday when reading an article about how quality communication is so important for people with Alzheimer’s Disease and dementias.

To give an example  of the way in which memory bridges connect us to our pasts and to other people, I have decided to post the piece I wrote for the Memory Bridge Foundation’s Forum.  It is called The Daffodils  and relates to the wonderful and lasting bond I retained with my father, who had dementia.

THE DAFFODILS:

MemoryBridge

 One of my proudest moments in primary school was coming second in a class competition reciting a poem. I had chosen The Daffodils by William Wordsworth. The winner recited I am a Little Teapot and I remember well how she acted out all the different parts brilliantly and rightfully won the prize of a bar of rose-scented soap.

            After I finished my Leaving Certificate, my older sister brought me on a hostelling trip around the Lake District in England.  We visited the romantic, old-world Dove Cottage in Grasmere, where Wordsworth composed most of his great poems, including, The Daffodils. I lingered and lingered there trying to soak up every detail of this overwhelmingly inspirational place.

            Thirty-five years on, Wordsworth and The Daffodils have re-entered my life, as I share treasured moments reading poetry to my Father who is in his ninety-first year and confined to bed. He has had memory problems for a number of years now. I would never have associated Dad with poetry but, by chance, one evening I took out an anthology of Best Loved Poems and started reading to him as he was too tired to talk. When I reached the last verse of The Daffodils, I heard his sleepy voice chime in with mine ‘And then my heart with pleasure fills/And dances with the daffodils’.  His pensive eyes met mine that evening, as they have on so many evenings since, with a glow of connection that draws us together on a memory bridge built of time, colour, laughter and love.

                   ********************************************

Dad died very peacefully at home in September, 2010.

six weeks since you died;

I planted daffodils

to keep you alive

 

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SECTION FIVE

DISENFRANCHISED GRIEF AND THE VERY OLD

In 1989, I came across a book called Disenfranchised Grief: Recognizing Hidden Sorrow by American gerontologist Kenneth Doka* which left a lasting impression on me because it raised issues about situations in which people experience a loss, yet their grief may go unrecognised by the people who surround them.  Among  the examples given on the fly-leaf are: a gay man who loses his lover to AIDS; a divorced woman who  receives the news of her ex-husband’s death;  an elderly man who loses his favourite pet.

I returned to the book again when I went in search of literature about ‘coping with losing elderly parents’  and found a paper in it by M. Moss and S. Moss called entitled, ‘Death of the Very Old.’

Moss and Moss note that when  one hears about a person’s death, often the first question asked is: ‘How old was he {or she}?’ They say that the intent of this simple query is complex and if the person was very old it may imply  that the mourner needs less comforting.  They also say that since the lives of older people tend to decrease in social value, it is likely that  the expression of grief is less socially meaningful when the deceased (and/or the survivor) is very old.

Moss and Moss’s point that it is necessary to recognise the complexity of the process of bereavement and the potential disenfranchisement of the grief in response to the death of very old persons is worthy of careful note.  In their 1989 paper, they identified a range of areas of research on the intereaction between old age and bereavement which required further research.

In the context of  ‘Coping with Losing Elderly Parents’,  I was particularly interested in their call for research into the following questions:

1. What are the similarities and differences in patterns and expectations of grief when the very old person is a spouse, or a parent, or a sibling, or other family relation?

2. Is there a shift over the life span in the degree to which the expression of grief is a solitary rather than a family or group experience?

Perhaps research has been conducted into these areas since 1989.  If anyone reading this Post is aware of such research, perhaps you would be kind enough to leave the relevant references.

* Doka, K. (Ed.) (1989), Disenfranchised Grief: Recognizing Hidden Sorrow (Massachusetts: Lexington Books)

 

 

SECTION SIX  

    THE MEANING OF HOME                                                

Philip B. Stafford, Ph.D., Director of the Center on Aging and Community, Indiana Institute on Disability and Community, at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, USA  has written a very thought-provoking piece called the  ‘The Deep Meaning of Home’   on his blog at http://agingindiana.wordpress.com.

The key points which captivated me from this piece were Dr. Stafford’s emphasis on the difference between ‘home’ and ‘house’ and how ‘home’  has so many features which are bound up in memories of the journey through life.  Dr. Stafford is writing from the point of view of  ‘elders’ and the issue of  trying to understand the implications both, emotional and for policy, of the issue of possibly having to leave ‘home’ because of  the need for assistance. He reports on an exciting  project where steps were taken to enable ‘elder’s to stay in their own homes but with input at various different levels, negotiated with the elders themselves.

Undoubtedly, many of the points which he makes, especially in relation to the  meaning which may attach to apparently small things in a home, such as the marks on a door jamb which show the changing heights of the children in the family over the years, have implications too for the ‘grown-up’ children, as they consider the many factors involved in decision-making around having parents stay in their own home or not.

A point which also arises here is the extent to which it is very often only after elderly parents have moved out of home, either to go to some form of  long-term care facility or when they have died that the ‘children’ actually ‘unearth’ aspects of their parents lives that they found unexpected. For example, in my own case, I found that my Father had safely kept all the letters which I had sent home while I was abroad studying. I would never have imagined that he would have ‘treasured’ these, as he appeared to.

So part of  ‘coping with losing elderly parents’ may well involve much emotion around decsions about how feasible it is for them to stay in their own homes, especially if their safety is at issue. Also, the experience of sorting  through belongings, particularly when parents have passed, may well reveal insights into one’s parents lives that one wishes one could have shared with them.

Posted February 14th, 2011

 

SECTION SEVEN

AGEING PROJECTIONS FOR IRELAND

The Centre for Ageing Research and Development in Ireland (www.cardi.ie) projects that there will be a rise in the number of people aged 85+ in Ireland from 74,000 in 2006 to 356,000 in 2041. This is almost a five-fold increase.

Clearly, these figures indicate that there also be a significant rise in the numbers of people  losing ‘elderly parents’ in the coming decades.

Posted 15th February, 2011

SECTION EIGHT

CARING FOR YOUR PARENTS IN THEIR SENIOR YEARS

I was given a very interesting book recently, Caring for Your Parents in Their Senior Years: A Guide for Grown-up Children.  It was written by William Molloy and published in 1998 by Firefly Books: New York.

William Molloy is a geriatrician, from Co. Waterford, Ireland but he wrote the book while he was working in Canada.  Both his parents died during the writing of the book and it combines both his personal experience and his professional guidance on how grown-up children can help their parents.

Caring for Your Parents in their Senior Years is said to be the first book on aging written expressly for children who want to help their elderly parents.

Even though it was written in 1998, it does not come across anything like as dated as one might expect.

Posted 12/3/2011

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 SECTION NINE

‘YOU’LL GET OVER IT

THE RAGE OF BEREAVEMENT

 

Virgina Ironside’s (1996)  book,  ‘You’ll Get Over It: The Rage of Bereavement, caught my attention, firstly because of its rather curious title and, secondly, because I saw she had written it after the death of her father.

Published by Penguin, this relatively slim paperback is one of those books that I doubt I will ever forget because of  the way in which it captures the range of emotions associated with bereavement. It is also unusual in that the author makes it very clear that she is not offering answers or advice. Rather, she says that her hope is that the reader will find reassurance that ‘even in your craziest, most evil, most charmless, most miserable moments, you are not alone. That is, no more, no less, the sum total of what I can offer. But to feel a little less alone at a time when your loneliness is probably acute – well that is something.’ (p. xxiii).

I suspect that no two people who read Virginia Ironside’s book  would identify the same set of points as having been of interest, or indeed benefit, to them. For that reason, I would recommend that people read her book for themselves as there is such a wealth of material about reactions to death buried within it.

For me, there were a number of themes which she addressed which I found to be particularly interesting. First, her point that writing about her father’s death was something which she found useful in terms of trying to overcome the helpless feelings. As she put it, ‘…although not the architect of my father’s death, (I) was at least in the powerful position of being its chronicler (p.38).

Second,  was her reference to Lawrence Whistler’s account of his wife’s life and death in which he addressed that extent to which what was unendurable for him was precisely the idea of coming through the suffering associated with his loss.  Summed up: ‘If she faded altogether, I thought, that would be the real goodbye; whereas grieving was only loving in another key.’ (p. 79)

Third, was Ironside’s discussion of Ursula Bowlby, writing about the death of her husband, the psychologist, John Blowby, and about the death of her mother, at the age of eighty-eight. Of the latter, Ursula Bowlby wrote: ‘ I had spent my life dreading losing her, yet when she died I felt her safe in my heart, and free – free from the disabilities of old age. She is still in my heart. The two people I most dreaded losing are not lost to me.’

Fourth, was her point that the shock of death makes everything vivid, and we often feel much more aware of out emotions than we normally do, feel strangely present in a world in which we normally act like robots. Our senses may become acute, and since laughter and tears are good bedfellows, it’s not particularly surprising that a certain hilarity often prevails, particularly during the days of shock, around the funeral.

Fifth, Ironside argues that the death of a parent brings us to new places. She says that our role in society may be just as secure as it was before, but we suffer our own particular kinds of internal loneliness, and find our interior furniture completely upside down. ‘Losing a parent means you lose your home and your centre.  However much of a home you may have created for your family, in one sense, for you, your home is always where your parents are. Now that home is gone. The hub of your life has gone. The centre of your life has vanished, and often, feeling only a child inside, you may have to take on the role of family centre yourself.’ (p. 145).

Sixth, Virgina Ironside, while arguing that death is not a gift or a harvest, nor does it enrich, claims that ‘it certainly teaches us a lesson.’  Writing about her own demise, she  says that she hopes that she dies young enough for her son to experience what it is like to live without parents for  a good part of his life. ‘ He may find that death drives him to church or to suicide; to become cynical; to love the present more; to become depressed; to become more his own man; to realise that he can actually do without me, in reality, not in imagination. He may find life sweeter, he may find life crueler. Whatever, and however, he lives life, it will almost certainly be truer.’ (p.170).

Mary Loudon in The Times, said of Virginia Ironside’s book: ‘It is rich in ideas and consistently clear…painfully honest, sensible and kind…a very good book.’  I couldn’t agree more and would add that it is dotted with unexpected humour and wit. I too would highly recommend it, for everyone in view of our own inevitable mortality and so that we can develop a greater understanding of the emotions that surround death,  in ourselves, others and in society as a whole.

Posted March 3, 2011

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SECTION TEN

MOTHER’S DAY, 2011

Where else would I go on my first Mother’s Day as a parentless child but out to Annestown. Last year I spent my early morning time with Dad, but this year I’m back in our old haunt remembering all those times we came here, on holidays, for a swim,  a paddle,  or just for a drive. Always the cuppa in the straw basket!

The first Sea Pinks have come into full bloom, just at the steps down to the beach. Also, the white horse was in the field; no swans in the river though. But then the white horse came down to the beach – a happy girl riding him. Thoughts of you in the Ponies’ Wood.

Memories of how you always wanted to go for your own ‘little walk,’ thinking I suspected, of times growing up or days when you and Dad brought us here as kids.

I’m planning to go for a swim. I can hear you saying:

 Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

                         old time he is a flying;

                         and that same flower that blooms today,

                         tomorrow may be dying.

Mother’s Day and I’d arrive with a present knowing that your, ‘Ah Mother’s Day is only a cod!,’ didn’t really mean that you wanted nothing.

Now it’s me who is ‘Mother.’ I don’t want that role all to myself. I want to be ‘daughter’ too.

I took one stone from the beach – the colour of your hair – ‘burnished gold.’ The sea was all sorts of colours – mainly silver, but golden shades are there in the stone, the gorse, daffodils,  celandines and dandelions.

Dad would have been in his element today with his camera. The sun came out, but more importantly, big white fluffy clouds are reflecting on the sand;  drawing  past, present and, I suppose, future together.

It feels calm being here, listening to the crows, and watching them building their nests in the trees at the entrance to the beach. I can’t but think of that day out with Dad, when I shot the crow or, at least was a party to shooting the crow. You understood how terrible I felt. The shock of it!

We never talked about how Mother’s Day would be without a mother. We never talked about lots of things but maybe we didn’t need to. I’m certain that you’d love it here today. I know you’d be saying, ‘Now go for your swim and don’t have Harry worrying about you.’

            He misses you too in all the little ways that you and I often talked about.

It’s never the big things, is it? Just the fleeting memories – your blue towel that you used for swimming; your love of gorse; the moon; that smile when we’d come in, ‘Oh hello,’ like as if you hadn’t seen us for years; your urgings not to forget to put the plate over the trifle after I’d poured the custard over the sponge; the importance of ‘eye appeal’ and the sprig of parsley; the first primrose; your hug when I told you I was pregnant. Or what about Mother’s Hour – back when I’d interrupt you listening to it on Radio 4 when I’d come in from school and you’d always switch it off; then Mother’s Hour when we’d chat at 11.30 – always things to talk about, always comfortable silences, knowing where the other was.

I’m headed in for the swim. I’ll see you walking along the beach, paddling, where possible.  I’ll see you up on the cliff, keeping an eye on me” I’ll hear you say: ‘You looked so happy in there. It must have been nice.’  I’ll hear you say, ‘Do you remember the time…?’

Yes, Mother, I do.

Posted April 3, 2011

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 SECTION ELEVEN

THE OTHER SIDE OF SADNESS

 I have just finished reading The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss, by George Bonanno.  This book, which was published in 2009 (Basic Books:New York), is very thought-provoking and certainly challenges many of the views which have long been held about coping with loss.

            Bonanno, who is a Professor of Clinical Psychology in New York,  emphasises the capacity of humans to thrive in the face of adversity and thus, ‘natural resilience’ is a key theme running throughout the book.  Bonanno’s central claim is that while some people suffer from chronic grief, and others experience a more gradual recovery, ‘the good news is that for most of us, grief is not overwhelming or unending.’

            Bonanno has developed his theory using careful scientific research, using both large samples and longitudinal studies, as well as more in-depth qualitative approaches.

There were a number of specific points in the book which I found particularly interesting in the context of my reading about, and personal experience of, losing elderly parents.

Chapter Three, ‘Sadness and Laughter,’ was a key chapter for me. In this, Bonanno stresses that sadness, like every emotion, is transient and highlights the point that it will pass, even though we may feel differently when engulfed by it:

Although when we feel sad, it may seem as if our sadness will last forever, in actuality, by definition, all emotions are ephemeral – that is they are short-term reactions to the immediate demands on us, usually lasting only a few seconds and at the most a few hours.’ (p. 33)

With regard to smiling and laughter, Bonanno claims that what really matters in terms of our long-term health, is the ability to crack a grin when the chips are down. He makes the point that there is a world of difference between a sincere and a false smile. Sincere laughing and smiling ‘give us a temporary respite from the pain of loss; they allow us to come up for air, to breathe.’  

He also notes that his  research shows that  bereaved people who are able to laugh or smile while discussing their loss evoke more positive emotion and less frustration in others than do people who cannot laugh or smile.

Bonanno writes about the complexities which can surround the sense of relief when someone close dies.  He notes that those who have been caregivers, in  contrast to those who show a more straightforward kind of resilience, do not tend to find comfort in memories of the deceased, at least not at first. However, their initial relief changes over time with clam setting in and it becomes easier to find comfort in the more joyous memories of the lost loved one.

Bonanno writes very openly about his response to the death of his own father, when he was 26 years old. He categorises it as one of ‘relief’ but writes at length about how he experienced this and the manner in which it was far from representing a simple ‘release.’

In the final chapter ‘ Thriving in the Face of Adversity’,  Bonanno  draws upon a bereavement study which spanned 35 years. He writes that it shows how many aspects of bereavement fade only gradually and intense reactions may still be felt, especially on key days, such as anniversaries, years and years on. He also notes how common it is for bereaved people to worry that they will forget their loved one, and lose track of their memories, even years after a loved one’s death.

Overall, Bonanno’s book, though at the outset seeming to be almost overly optimistic about our ability to cope with loss, displays a sensitivity, empathy and hope, which render it very manageable as it challenges so many of the traditional beliefs around loss and bereavement. For me, the following extract, is one of the most memorable in a book which I would definitely recommend to those who are coping with losing elderly parents:

Not everybody manages well, but most of us do. And some of us it seems, can deal with just about anything. We adapt, we change gears, we smile and laugh and do what we need to do, we nurture our memories, we tell ourselves it is not as bad as we thought, and before we know it, what once seemed bleak and bottomless has given way; the dark recedes and the sun again peeks out from behind the clouds.’ (p.81)

Posted April 30th, 2011

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Section 12

QUESTIONING IDENTITY

 Personal Connections with Alzheimer’s Disease

 Abstract of Paper Presented

 at

 Annual Conference of the Sociological Association of Ireland

 May 7^th, 2011

 

This paper has emerged from my experience over the last six years in taking on the role of ‘carer’ of my elderly parents. In that sense, it follows in the tradition of Julius Roth’s (1963) classic, Timetables, in which he used his experience as a TB patient to explore the structuring of time in hospital careers.

            The particular issue which I address is the way in which identities are challenged by perceptions of  Alzheimer’s Disease and dementias as forms of ‘social death’.

My experience, particularly with my father, who had a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease,  was one in which I was, in a sense, a participant observer, in the dynamic surrounding the attempted unravelling of both his identity as ‘father’ and mine as ‘daughter.’

The infantalisation of people with Alzheimer’s Disease is the dominant response to what are perceived as the trappings of ‘babyhood’: for example, incontinence pads/nappies; wheelchairs/buggies; repetitive speech/baby-talk.

A key consequence of this pervasive response is actions based on a perception of role reversal within families. Thus, the ‘father’ is perceived as the child while the ‘daughter’ is perceived as the ‘parent’.

My lived experience with my father strongly suggests that there is a very different paradigm within which people with Alzheimer’s Disease and dementias can be perceived. This is one in which the emphasis is on maintaining ‘connection’ with the individual and the continuities within his/her social identity. This is an approach which is very much advocated within the work of cultural anthropologist, Dr. Phil Stafford of the Center for Aging and Community inIndianaas well as by Memory Bridge Foundation, founded in theUSin 2004.

Within this paradigm, Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia are not viewed as an ‘ending’ and the focus is on the capacity of people with Alzheimer’s Disease  and related dementias to maintain emotionally meaningful relationships. Taking this approach, identities remain intact but what alter are modes of communication. Thus, ‘father’ and ‘daughter’ may communicate using social ‘memory bridges’ such as poetry, music, photography, food, and touch, as well as ‘conversation.’

Like Julius Roth, I would argue that what may seem like ‘time out’ from sociology can indeed provide us with opportunities to become immersed in social contexts which not only change our own perspective but provide us with knowledge to stimulate thought and action in relation to key areas of social life.

Jean Tubridy, PhD

www.socialbridge.ie

 Posted May 9th, 2011

 

SECTION THIRTEEN

MAY MEMORIES BLOSSOM

It is not very surprising that many people lose both their elderly parents in a relatively short space of time.  So often, it seems that those who have lived long lives in a close bond find it difficult to battle on when their partner dies. Obviously, there is also the fact that  for many people who are in their late 80s or their 90s, there are likely to be various age-related illnesses at play which leave them vulnerable, especially when faced with the loss of their spouse.

Although one hears about such cases, there seems to be relatively little written about the impact on grown-up children of losing both parents within a short space of time.

I find myself writing about this now because of the fact that my mother’s second anniversary is looming.  I feel very conscious of the fact that because I was so taken up with caring for my father who outlived her by 16 months, that I essentially ‘set aside’ grieving for Mother in order to focus on my father’s needs.

It was with the onset of May this year that I became very aware  a whole host of aspects of ‘nature,’ in particular , which I associate very much with Mother. The lengthening evenings and the bursting forth of rhododendrons, carpets of bluebells and sea pinks. Also,  high tides and soft sunsets, in which the sun and moon seem very much at one with each other. The luscious greening of the fields and the sight, once again, of young foals, calves and lambs out grazing – never too far away from their mothers.

Last May I found myself trying to write a ‘memoir’ of Mother but interestingly, while I had no difficulty writing about both her youth and her old age and death, I found myself unable to write about the years in between – in other words, the years in which she became a young mother herself  up to the point when I became a mother myself.

So many memories come to me now, not so much chronologically, of shared times which she and I had.  There was the first time that I was abroad. That was when I was almost seventeen and hadn’t been very well. Mother decided on a whim that she would take me to Spain for a week in the sun for a ‘rest cure.’ It was a huge adventure for both of us and, for the first time,  we were more like sisters than mother and daughter. We felt that we had ‘discovered’ beautiful Mijas up in the mountains and I still have one of the embroidered pillow cases that she bought that day and which invariably sparked a nostalgic chat about that holiday when she would be ironing it. We would laugh over the way the Spanish men in the shops flirted with us both as we ambled around the resort in the evenings. ‘Ah,  they wouldn’t have been like that if Dad had been around!’  She would smile in agreement:  her warm, true smile.

When I first started school, she used to collect me everyday on her bicycle. She would cycle to the school and then on the way home I’d sit up on the saddle and she would push the bike. It was a bicycle that she had had since she was in her teens and I ended up using it when I went to university. It is in retirement now, out in our garden shed but it is a bike that has travelled through many, many decades and counties of Ireland.

Mother had a grand theory that if one could play tennis to any sort of reasonable standard, it would be like a passport to getting to know people anywhere. When I was three, we lived in a house very near the tennis club and Mother used to bring us three kids down through the hole in the hedge at the bottom of our garden to the grass courts where she taught us the rudiments of the game.  For her, tennis was all about enjoyment and she instilled an absolute love of the game in me. Her patience as a ‘coach’ was amazing as she would hit ball after ball to us with her wooden racquet.

Later, I went on to play a good deal of competitive tennis and one of my lasting memories was coming home after a ‘big’ win to find that she had put a ‘red carpet’ out on the gravel to welcome me. The fact that it was around midnight made the carpet seem all the softer!

Reading, writing and words were fundamental to Mother’s whole being. She would have loved to have been a journalist but her hopes were dashed by the fact the Second World War commenced just at the point when she was having to make career decisions and journalism didn’t seem to be an option. Notwithstanding that, she wrote to a very high standard and had numerous articles published and broadcast at national level.  My happiest memories of her love of words were the nightly stories she would read to me and the word games we would play, especially making up rhymes.

In later years, when I was living in my bedsit in Dublin, she would come and stay with me.  Being back in a flat seemed to bring her back to her own ‘single’ days and we would end up chatting half the night with the light off. She would be in my bed – my big gesture to her being ‘mother’ and I would sleep on a mattress on the floor. She revelled in the business of having to manage in the tiny room which had only a two ringed hob for cooking and with sharing  a bathroom with about 6 other residents in the house.

By far the best part of my graduation from College was having Mother come to stay for the preparations. She also stayed with me in the flat when we went ‘hunting’ for clothes to wear at my wedding.

This weekend 16 years ago is etched in my memory as it was the weekend before my only child was born – Mother’s seventh grandchild. My husband and I went for a drive out along the coast that Sunday and saw Mother and Dad’s car parked. We stopped and looked in over the ditch where there was a little nook overlooking the vast expanse of the glistening sea.  There they were, sitting side by side on small deckchairs, in among the sea pinks and surrounded by heavily scented gorse. As usual they had the old wicker basket with them, with the inevitable thermos flask wrapped in a flowery tea towel, and were drinking tea and eating biscuits. The sun was blazing but nothing was warmer than the smiles that greeted us.

 Posted May 19th, 2011.

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Section  Fourteen

Sunflowers: Anniversary Reactions

In my earlier discussion of George Bonanno’s book, The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells us About Life After Loss, I drew attention to his description of  what he terms, ‘anniversary reactions.’  In his chapter on Thriving in the Face of Adversity, he says that these common reactions  ‘occur anytime a bereaved person experiences a dramatic increase in sadness or loneliness on the anniversary of an important date related to the loss.’ 

Today is one of those days on which I have felt an ‘anniversary reaction’ in very real terms in relation to the loss of my father last  September.  Today would have been his 92nd birthday and it is also 9 months to the day since he died.  I find myself both thinking and writing about him and the dominant theme for all sorts of reasons is ‘sunflowers.’

SUNFLOWERS

His eyes shone with tears when he saw me arriving with the big bunch of sunflowers. ‘I don’t know whether I’m laughing or crying,’ he said, wiping his now 91-year-old face that looked as handsome as ever to me.

The evening before I got married, he called me aside and told me he wanted to give me a small present. It was his collection of leather-bound art books that he had kept beside his bed for years in his special bookcase.  Every night he would chose one of the art books just before bed and line it up with a novel, a book of humour, a business magazine and that day’s newspaper. How often would we find him asleep in the morning with his glasses falling down on his long nose and one of the art books open on a colourful picture?

He wrote to me just once and that was shortly before my boyfriend died, when I was twenty-three. He had written with a fountain pen, in dark blue ink, and each page was like a work of art, displaying his passion for calligraphy.  He told me in that letter how regrets were the most difficult things to bear and he finished up by saying that I was to know that he and Mother would always be there with shoulders to cry on and lean on.

Walking, half-running, home with him after our school’s Christmas Concert when I was 7, I told him that the girls in my class had voted him the best looking man there. ‘Did they now?’ he asked with a touch of a smile.

Out in the dewy garden, I’ve just been checking my seed trays. Yes, the sunflowers have burst through over night, their perfectly formed fresh green leaves promising big yellow blooms. I’m looking at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers from August 1888. I have to agree, ‘It’s a beauty.’

His presence is all around today, June 10^th, Dad’s birthday.  I know I won’t be running down to him, clutching sunflowers for his 92^nd birthday, but I hope he’s found a comfortable deckchair where he can lean back, soak up the sun and ponder on a life well spent.

Posted June 10, 2011

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SECTION FIFTEEN

REFLECTIONS ON FATHER’S ANNIVERSARY

Ballycotton, Co. Cork lured me back. Somehow, I just had to be there for Dad’s first anniversary, September 10th, 2011.

Driving down the Waterford -Cork road, the mist was getting thicker but then when I drove into Ballycotton, past Paradise – the old bathing place  – and Cliff Palace – the old dancehall –  and on up to the cliff, the sun came bursting through.  A quick glance at the clock – 10:57 am. Just the time, I had glanced at it when I had got the phonecall to say that he had died. 10/57 – October 1957 – the year I was born.

Tears flowed but I could hear him saying: ‘Here’s a hankie, child. Now,  go off and enjoy yourself while the sun is out.’  I had his camera bag beside me; looking a bit scruffy now that I’ve had it for a year but it reminds me so much of him.  I don’t know how long he’d had it but it defintiely goes  back to the Drogheda days and has a lovely  worn softness to it. The khaki colour is very close to  the colour of his eyes. I’m certain that never entered his head when he bought it!

Last time I was in Ballycotton was July 2010. While I was walking along the cliffs, he had got up – Lazarus-like  – to watch his native Clare playing his adopted Waterford in the hurling championship. Waterford won but he enjoyed every minute of it.  He never went to the drawing room again or watched another match but it seems so right that it was Clare and Waterford – with Waterfod managed by Clareman, Davy Fitzgerald,  that he was watching.

Cliffs were places he was almost reared on – Kilkee’s West End was where he spent endless summers as a child and teenager. He never said ‘be careful’ to me when I was heading off to take photos on cliffs or asked how on earth did I get that one of the steepest of steep drops. He just knew! And he knew there was no point nagging about it – I was home safe and anyway, hadn’t he brought me along enough cliffs as a child to give me instruction on how not to fall over. I don’t think anyone else in the world would have been so much in favour of this expedition as he would have been.

The Cliffs, Ballycotton, Co. Cork

And, what’s more he would have loved to have been with me – walking single file each with our own thoughts but sharing the beauty and knowing that the other was blissfully happy.  Of course, he would have been taking the photographs, not me. Only room for one photographer in our house!

My mind slipped back to the time I went out with him in 1987 when I had broken my leg. He was taking photos on the Cliff Road in Tramore and had disappeared over an edge.  I was leaning on my my crutches waiting for him and happily looking down at the waves crashing against the rocks far below. A car pulled up beside me; man let’s down window and calls out: ‘Ah don’t even think about it, Love!  It could be worse.’  I wondered what he would have said to Dad if he had seen where he was – tripod all rigged up and him standing with a sheer drop just inches away from him. Father had roared laughing when I had told him about ‘yer man’s’ comment when he finally re-emerged looking very pleased with himself. The clouds had taken their time but it should be well worth the wait. ‘Tricky spot, though and really you’d want a young boy to be carrying the tripod and the second camera bag for you!’

What a difference between July and September!  The sea had a hazy look, not the sharp blue of summer,  and the landscape was transformed. The lush green fields had turned to golden brown ~ harvested.  Briars that I had been pushing out of my way were leaning towards me offering the fruits of their year – big juicy blackberries.  Keats’ Ode to Autumn came back to me:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Cliff  Walk, Ballycotton, Co. Cork

Ballycotton Lighthouse, out on its island just past the harbour, which had been so clear against a blue, blue sky that July, seemed determined to stay out of focus in a slight mist but all round it there was circle of bright waves against the dark rocks. How black the rocks are here compared the the reddish tones along the Copper Coast.  I think of Dad’s advice,  ‘ bide your time and the light will come right eventually.’

The gulls that had been shrieking and calling in July were silent now, gliding in the wind; soaring up to meet the sun and swooping right down, camougflaged at times by the colour of the wild waves.

I’m suddenly in the  the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin with Mother and Dad, when I was about nine. That was the first time I had heard ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ and I couldn’t understand why Mother was crying.  Ballycotton Cliffs are anything but white and I begin to think of a conversation I had with Mother in her later years about poetry.  Somewhat to my surprise,  she said that The White Birds was her favourite Yeats’ poem. It came as an even greater surprise to me to find in the months after Mother’s death that The White Birds was also one of Dad’s all time favourite poems as well.

The White Birds

by: W.B. Yeats

I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!

We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;

And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,

Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.

A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose;

Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,

Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew:

For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!

I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,

Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;

Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be,

Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!

Somehow seeing the gulls flying so serenely, I had a sense that  Father and Mother were indeed re-united  at some level.  The sight also drew me back to a note I’d received from a friend about Father’s anniversary:

‘ We grieve for ourselves not for the ones we lost….. Your Dad was 91 years  old and he and your mother,  I’m sure, had seen almost everything they wanted together. Your Father doesn’t want you to be unhappy so why are you making him feel sad …..

Back down in Ballycotton village, I had to go see the harbour. Harbours have never been the same for me since I read Cicero’s lines on ageing and death in his inspirational book, On a Life Well Spent:

‘… the nearer I draw to my end, it seems like discovering the land at sea, that, after the tossings of a tedious and stormy voyage, will yield me a safe and quiet harbour.’

Even though I had been to Ballycotton on numerous occasions, this was the first time that I became fully conscious of the many harbour walls that look like comforting arms safely securing the trawlers and boats:

The Harbour, Ballycotton, Co. Cork

As the evening drew in I felt Father’s determination bubbling up inisde me –  could this be the moment to catch a clear photograph of the Lighthouse?   The beacon had started flashing. Here was a whole new challenge!  This is where Father’s oft quoted theory about the need for lifelong learning came to life yet again.

Ballycotton Lighthouse, Co. Cork

While I’m trying to take this shot, I smile when I remember the guide at Hook Head Lighthouse telling us that all lighthouses are unique and have different timings and colours.  ‘Just like parents,’  I think to myself.  At that moment, I see that the moon, Mother’s ‘oldest friend, ‘  as Dad always jokingly described it,  has come out to take over from the setting sun and to keep the lighthouse company.

 Posted on September 13th, 2011

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SECTION SIXTEEN

IRISH HOSPICE FOUNDATION

WORKSHOPS ON LOSS AND BEREAVEMENT

Given my interest in the whole issue of ‘losing elderly parents,’ I was drawn to a day-long workshop entitled: Intimations of Mortality: Death and Bereavement in Old Age, which I heard was being run by the Irish Hospice Foundation in Nassau St. Dublin  as part of its 2012 series of Workshops on Loss and Bereavement. www.hospice-foundation.ie

Having looked at the Programme of Workshops, I decided to attend both this workshop, which was presented by Marianne McGriffin, and a second one that was on the following day: Communicating in Difficult Circumstances – A Workshop for Non-Clinical Staff, presented by Dr. Susan Delaney.

The overall experience of attending the two Workshops was extremely stimulating, informative, thought-provoking, comfortable and comforting in the broadest terms.

My intention here is not to go into the detail of the content of the Workshops but to highlight the fact there is a whole programme of workshops being run by the Irish Hospice Foundation  as part of its very significant educational programme.

I was extremely impressed by the way in which both presenters were so well-informed and well-prepared and had such a genuine interest in their particular subject areas. While their styles differed somewhat, both had a wonderful ability to  embrace the sensitivities and difficulties associated with their subject areas. What might have been two rather dark days dealing with dying, death, loss and grief ended up being uplifting experiences during which there was plenty of laughter as well as a strong sense of  hope and emphasis on human resilience.

In the days since I have attended the Workshops, many issues that were raised by both the presenters and participants have been giving me lots of food for thought and I am certain that this will continue over the next weeks and months as I reflect back on the days as well as work through the useful hand-outs and reading lists that were provided.

It was clear from talking to the other participants that they found the Workshops as useful as I did, even if for very different reasons,  and it came as no surprise to hear that many had already attended previous workshops in the Programme over the last few years. I can say without hesitation that I have already identified a number which I have no intention of missing!

 Posted: 6th March, 2012