always on the weeks I promise to be good about not drinking beer every evening.
Today at work we were supposed to -- well, did -- have some sort of grief counseling / memorial thing because we've been having what you might call a semi-annual die off. I was late getting in because I was helping someone else's resident, came in the back way with my temper boiling, washed my hands quietly and realized that they were reading a special poem and inviting people to share their beautiful memories.
1. Feelings in public.
2. At the risk of seeming callous, I am sorry when people die and I miss them when they're gone, but for God's sake, these are people in their eighties and nineties with dementia and comorbid issues. When I meet them, the first time I say Good morning or Hello, my name is Meg, I know that the odds are that they're going to die within one to five years. Not in like, the All flesh is dust sense, I mean in the most of the people I work with have dementia AND something else that would undoubtedly kill them even if their brain didn't sense.
They've already survived cancer and the death of spouses and war and strokes. Their clocks are winding down, and unless I leave the job or get hit by a car, I will come in one morning and be told that they are dead. I may even be the one to find them. I have been one of the last people to do something for a person dying. I have sat beside them and washed their faces as the death fever burnt their soul out. I have held their hands and stroked their forehead and talked about nothing, just so they could hear the sound of a human voice. I have seen the light go out of their eyes, slow, day after day. I have comforted them in their fear and laughed with them, and I have been struck in their anger and I have gone back to them with a smile and a gentle voice.
I mean ... I can't help them when they're dead, so there's no use being sad. I remember them with love and tell stories about them. What else can I do?
So I went and helped W's hospice aid instead.
3. FEELINGS. IN. PUBLIC.
Relatedly, here is a pro tip: when your aged parent has reached the stage of needing to be in a facility like Ours, and has the paranoid and aggressive variety of brain weasels, please, for the love of Christ, if your sibling dies unexpectedly, please please ask yourself and their doctor and possibly the staff where they live if, you know, you should tell them about it. Maybe instead of the brain weasels telling your parent every ten minutes that a child of theirs is dead and so someone must have killed them (AND THEN GOING UP TO PEOPLE AND THREATENING TO KILL THEM FOR DOING IT, IT'S BEEN AWESOME, THANKS FOR ASKING), maybe your sibling could be 'gone this week' for a really long time? Or you know, Sibling couldn't be here, Parent, they send their love.
Like, sometimes you have to ask yourself, is it better to be kind or factual? (By the way, if a person wanders up to you in a dementia unit and says Have you seen my mother/father/husband/daughter, I think the best answer is 'Not lately, but if I see them, I will be sure to tell them you were looking for them'.) Reminding someone their husband is dead makes them horribly sad and upset for the five minutes they remember the conversation, and then you just have to have it again as soon as their short term memory dies anyway.
Anyway, after I got off work I had a long discussion about the Modern LMM AU I'm Still Not Writing with Kate, which was extremely soothing, and also sausages.
This entry was originally posted at http://lazulisong.dreamwidth.org/164467.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
1. Feelings in public.
2. At the risk of seeming callous, I am sorry when people die and I miss them when they're gone, but for God's sake, these are people in their eighties and nineties with dementia and comorbid issues. When I meet them, the first time I say Good morning or Hello, my name is Meg, I know that the odds are that they're going to die within one to five years. Not in like, the All flesh is dust sense, I mean in the most of the people I work with have dementia AND something else that would undoubtedly kill them even if their brain didn't sense.
They've already survived cancer and the death of spouses and war and strokes. Their clocks are winding down, and unless I leave the job or get hit by a car, I will come in one morning and be told that they are dead. I may even be the one to find them. I have been one of the last people to do something for a person dying. I have sat beside them and washed their faces as the death fever burnt their soul out. I have held their hands and stroked their forehead and talked about nothing, just so they could hear the sound of a human voice. I have seen the light go out of their eyes, slow, day after day. I have comforted them in their fear and laughed with them, and I have been struck in their anger and I have gone back to them with a smile and a gentle voice.
I mean ... I can't help them when they're dead, so there's no use being sad. I remember them with love and tell stories about them. What else can I do?
So I went and helped W's hospice aid instead.
3. FEELINGS. IN. PUBLIC.
Relatedly, here is a pro tip: when your aged parent has reached the stage of needing to be in a facility like Ours, and has the paranoid and aggressive variety of brain weasels, please, for the love of Christ, if your sibling dies unexpectedly, please please ask yourself and their doctor and possibly the staff where they live if, you know, you should tell them about it. Maybe instead of the brain weasels telling your parent every ten minutes that a child of theirs is dead and so someone must have killed them (AND THEN GOING UP TO PEOPLE AND THREATENING TO KILL THEM FOR DOING IT, IT'S BEEN AWESOME, THANKS FOR ASKING), maybe your sibling could be 'gone this week' for a really long time? Or you know, Sibling couldn't be here, Parent, they send their love.
Like, sometimes you have to ask yourself, is it better to be kind or factual? (By the way, if a person wanders up to you in a dementia unit and says Have you seen my mother/father/husband/daughter, I think the best answer is 'Not lately, but if I see them, I will be sure to tell them you were looking for them'.) Reminding someone their husband is dead makes them horribly sad and upset for the five minutes they remember the conversation, and then you just have to have it again as soon as their short term memory dies anyway.
Anyway, after I got off work I had a long discussion about the Modern LMM AU I'm Still Not Writing with Kate, which was extremely soothing, and also sausages.
This entry was originally posted at http://lazulisong.dreamwidth.org/164467.html. Please comment there using OpenID.