Doing the necessary things.
I wrote this for my friend
hickbear on LiveJournal. This will probably be the introduction to the book my friends are pushing me to write about caring for a parent with dementia or Alzheimer's.
CARING FOR A PARENT WITH DEMENTIA OR ALZHEIMER'S:
In these situations, we do what we must, and not what we want, because we know deep inside that it's the right thing to do, and that if the roles were reversed, this is how you would have wanted to be taken care of.
Knowing this doesn't make doing the necessary things right, fun, or pleasant; it doesn't bring joy or gladness into our hearts. Knowing that you're doing the necessary things at the necessary times is, perversely, the only reward we get.
The doing of good deeds for others without expectation of recognition, reward, or acknowledgement is, in the Jewish faith, called "making a mitzvah".
Jews don't make mitzvahs because they hope for better treatment after death, for Jews don't have a concept of the afterlife. Jewish culture decrees that mitzvahs should be made to make the present world, in this life, a little bit nicer, a little bit saner, a little bit more polite. Mitzvahs are, in somewhat generalized terms, Judaism's method of fighting entropy.
Caring for a desperately ill aging parent (or other loved one) when dementia or Alzheimer's is involved, is a mega-mitzvah.
Why bother if their mind is going (or gone)? Because you don't know that they aren't trapped inside their minds somewhere, watching everything you do, and cheering you on for doing the right thing, no matter what their traitorous mouths may say or their hands may do.
Even as they externally scream or cry or call you names, there is quite possibly a shade of the loving, intelligent parent inside thanking you for caring enough to do whatever it is you must do for them.
It is for the mere possibility of that isolated, small voice deep inside your parent that you do these things, without question, without hesitation.
---
This entry was originally posted at http://allanh.dreamwidth.org/3325477.html. You may comment here using your LJ ID, or on Dreamwidth using OpenID.
hickbear on LiveJournal. This will probably be the introduction to the book my friends are pushing me to write about caring for a parent with dementia or Alzheimer's.
CARING FOR A PARENT WITH DEMENTIA OR ALZHEIMER'S:
In these situations, we do what we must, and not what we want, because we know deep inside that it's the right thing to do, and that if the roles were reversed, this is how you would have wanted to be taken care of.
Knowing this doesn't make doing the necessary things right, fun, or pleasant; it doesn't bring joy or gladness into our hearts. Knowing that you're doing the necessary things at the necessary times is, perversely, the only reward we get.
The doing of good deeds for others without expectation of recognition, reward, or acknowledgement is, in the Jewish faith, called "making a mitzvah".
Jews don't make mitzvahs because they hope for better treatment after death, for Jews don't have a concept of the afterlife. Jewish culture decrees that mitzvahs should be made to make the present world, in this life, a little bit nicer, a little bit saner, a little bit more polite. Mitzvahs are, in somewhat generalized terms, Judaism's method of fighting entropy.
Caring for a desperately ill aging parent (or other loved one) when dementia or Alzheimer's is involved, is a mega-mitzvah.
Why bother if their mind is going (or gone)? Because you don't know that they aren't trapped inside their minds somewhere, watching everything you do, and cheering you on for doing the right thing, no matter what their traitorous mouths may say or their hands may do.
Even as they externally scream or cry or call you names, there is quite possibly a shade of the loving, intelligent parent inside thanking you for caring enough to do whatever it is you must do for them.
It is for the mere possibility of that isolated, small voice deep inside your parent that you do these things, without question, without hesitation.
---
This entry was originally posted at http://allanh.dreamwidth.org/3325477.html. You may comment here using your LJ ID, or on Dreamwidth using OpenID.