At 4:55 PM on the 4th of September my Mom passed instantly from Earthly existence into Heaven as it is described in the Holy Bible. I was favored beyond much of this life’s existence by having sensed her death two days before as well as sensed the imminence of her passing both three hours as well as again at a point between five and eight minutes before.

I, of course, didn’t then know precisely when death would embrace Mom and in fact had expected it’s arrival as long as some few weeks prior. Nonetheless, I was favored by becoming aware of her soon to arrive passing the day before it occurred. I am thankful for that because I was then able to make my bed up next to her that night and spend the remaining time in close proximity and thought while I reviewed the blessings her life had brought forth in my life. Also included in the considerations of blessings received was the realization of her soon to arrive entry into what is described in the Bible as ultimate peace and joy within which there exists not so much as a single tear of detraction. ^{(Revelation 7:17)} Friend, after witnessing her experiencing such personal devastation over the preceding nearly six years, I think she and I both looked forward with joy toward the new life she was about to enter.

At roughly the five to eight minute before her death mark her breathing pattern changed from what had over the last two days consisted of relatively short spaced sharp intakes and exhales toward a pattern of smooth, peaceful breaths. As life on this Earth gradually crept away, the serenity of her newly patterned individual breaths became increasingly further apart and each breath also became more shallow. Her breathing digressed to a complete stop. Then after a long, long, did I say… long moment …it was as if she was venturing her last bit of humor toward me… she breathed again. It was as though she’d played her final joke because that was indeed, her final breath on Earth.

Over that last two day period, particularly the last 3 hours, she was surely at peace and as near as I could tell, she did not experience any physical pain.

Things to Ponder…

Click to immediately see below:

Caregiver… You must protect yourself against your loved one’s demise!
Does ‘distancing’ really mean I forever put the one I love at arm’s length?
Is this line of thought (Distancing) absurd?
Am I wrong to feel some sort of ‘relief’?
How does forgiveness fit into all this?

 

Care Giving Requirements

To say the very least, the experience of providing full time long term care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s Disease is all encompassing. The extent of the disease’s mental and emotional demands upon the Caregiver is consistent first with his or her individual psychological make-up. Next, the time the Alzheimer’s victim remained under his or her care; third, the victim’s rate of decline and finally, the respite and other forms of assistance the Caregiver had been gifted with throughout his or her Care Giving experience. Providing full time Care for an Alzheimer’s victim is a long term venture and can very often seem as though it is nothing less than a never ending, arduous ordeal. A variety of stress induced difficulties often encompass Care Giving responsibilities. (Please review… 14 Strategies for Controlling Stress.)

With that as a given, any full time Caregiver well understands the entirety of his or her… own life …actually becomes largely encompassed within, if not wholly reflective of not only the effects the disease brings forth upon his or her loved one, but the mental and emotional digression of the victim, as well. In short, that means that outside the boundaries of Care Giving… your mental and emotional outlook on life as well as your ability to function within what is normally considered to be a reasonable parameter of human expectations might well be hindered. That, because the Caregiver in a sense, has to a considerable degree become one with the victim.

Therein, Caregiver, lies a huge danger.

The danger is not that you’ve become ‘one with the victim’ in the sense you are so familiar with the needs of the victim you actually do almost wholly identify with he or she. No! Caregiver, you surely know that in order to provide the best possible care, you simply must know the victim, his or her needs, desires, fears, joys, etc. very, very well. And in that, you should be greatly applauded because you’ve endeavored to so fully embrace that familiarity… for the purpose of providing ever better care!

The danger is that within the process of Care Giving you might well have unknowingly lessened what should always remain an important, perhaps even vital obligation to yourself. That is, maintaining and perhaps even intentionally engineering a progressively more necessary mental and emotional ‘distance’ between you and he or she whom you provide care for. For YOUR sake.

Let me qualify the term, ‘distance’. I recognize that at this point even the term, ‘distance’ or ‘distancing’ very likely sounds horrid. It may even sound as though I am promoting the idea that a Care Giver should in some manner psychologically abandon their loved one. No. That is not the case. It is not that you mentally and emotionally put yourself at arms length from the Alzheimer’s victim. It’s that you 1) recognize this normally occurring ‘system of life’ for what it is and at the same time, 2) allow that naturally occurring phenomenon to help you initiate your mourning process well before the actuality of your loved one’s death. It’s more than that though; as contrary as it may sound… if you both mentally and emotionally allow this normal system of life ‘distancing’ to occur, as strange as it might sound you’ll at the same time discover your provision of ever enhanced continuing care to your loved one will become more enhanced. (I hope the rest of this Page is explained well enough to bridge any ill thought the term, ‘distance’, et al, might have brought forth. Be sure to read the section entitled… Does ‘distancing’ really mean I forever put the one I love at arm’s length?)

Friend, you must absolutely keep as an internal priority knowledge of the fact that Alzheimer’s Disease brings death to the victim one hundred percent of the time. With that as a certainty, you’ve simply got to remain cognizant of the vital importance of normal distancing as well as what might to a degree even be your own perhaps even intentionally engineered mental and emotional ‘distancing’. If during your long term 24/7 Care Giving journey you don’t enjoin the reality of both automated as well as perhaps personally engineered distancing within with the mix of your Care Giving responsibilities you may mentally and emotionally run yourself into the ground while you are providing care… that, because of the ever repeating as well as all encompassing ‘downer’ emotions automatically brought forth by day in and day out witnessing the increasingly negative effects the results of the disease forces upon your loved one. Moreover, when the victim does in fact die, that event could very well catapult the Caregiver into even greater depths of internal despair. Thus, by striving to avoid the built in benefits of ‘distancing’ then, the Caregiver, without really knowing it, may well have kept the doors open to a still coming and perhaps considerably extended mental, emotional and maybe even physically debilitating personal ordeal as a result of their loved one’s surely coming death.

When a loved one dies, the Care Giver first deals with 1) the understandable heartache of personally losing the loved one, next, 2) the Caregiver deals with questions such as what he or she could have, should have and if again given the opportunity, would have done differently. No, not necessarily efforts structured to prolong the life of the victim; presumably the ‘end of life’ wishes of the diseased person always had been a mainstay of your care. Rather, to have made the victim’s experience of declining life more comfortable, perhaps even joyful. And finally, 3) the Care Giver inevitably faces sometimes very difficult internal questions relative to his or her ability to properly deal with what can only be identified as some sort of personal ‘relief’.

For those who have gone through it already, mentally and emotionally working through each of the three just noted concerns… or all of them together, can create further ordeals. Thus, the need for advanced planning and proper preparation… in the form of employing a variety of forms of ‘distancing’ prior to the victim’s death.

Caregiver, while you must forever endeavor to become one with the victim in order to better comprehend needs for the purpose of offering assistance above and beyond the call of duty, you must at the same time never forget to keep as an equal priority the concept of protecting yourself by in some fashion and to some degree allowing the mental and emotional distancing to occur. Balancing these two ‘oppositions’ though, is where the difficulty lies. After all, how do you distance yourself and at the same time willingly strive to ensure your loved one has ever better care??? No doubt about it, endeavoring to make these two opposites cohesive can be tough.

Perhaps it’s best to think in terms of a concept often heard noted by Caregivers. It might seem uncaring, even harsh, but its truth is nevertheless… something for you to ponder. The idea so often mentioned is the Caregiver, whether he or she be a son, daughter, husband or wife of the victim, fairly early on in the progression of the disease begins to discover that without he or she fully realizing it has happened, his or her mind and heart has become, is becoming, conditioned toward the reality that in many if not most ways the victim is no longer who he or she once was. Take heart though… encompassed within that difficult truth, friend, is your opportunity to begin to recognize that you’ve unwittingly taken the first steps of your mourning process. (Which at the same time, quite understandably, helps you to provide better care!)

The idea that the victim is not the same person’ is not to suggest the Alzheimer’s victim, though gradually becoming a ‘different’ person, is less deserving of the Care Giver’s ongoing and quite resolute love and care. Or, the love of anyone else. Not in the slightest! The idea is first to discover, or perhaps more correctly re-discover how to love he or she who has become increasingly ‘new’ to you. Of course, friend, you’ll do that anyway and you’ll do it well because remember… you are a Care Giver! Thus indisputably, a cut above other people in their willingness to step forth to care for he or she who needs help. Caregivers, by definition, already know that even though the Alzheimer’s victim will increasingly become someone who is surely different from he or she whom you once knew, they are still… most …worthy of your love and care. Worthy because inside that ‘new’ person also resides the ‘old’ one whom you’ve loved for so long. Please take serious note of this concept: At the same time you are increasingly nurturing the ever changing, yet continually wonderful ‘new’ person who is arriving, you can also… and quite justly …be mentally and emotionally open toward a course which step by step takes you further along the mourning process of he or she who through no fault of their own is already at some stage in the process of leaving… i.e. that very one whom you still completely recognize as the one you’ve loved for so long.

NOTE: Many people view this line of thought as way out of sync with the way reality should be. They view Care Giving as a ‘labor of love’ and worthy of whatever hardships are endured. Please know that I do not argue with that thought in the slightest. For me, throughout my Care Giving adventure with Mom I did and still do abide by that same identification. But during the Care Giving process, I think God also wants each of us to discover and step by step prepare a peaceful way out of the mental, emotional and sometimes physical binds intensive Care Giving always brings forth. Really now, does it make the slightest bit of sense that God wants us to remain to any degree internally torn for an extended period of time? Of course not! He wants us to find a way out. Importantly… He has instituted an automated ‘system of life’ that helps us along in our necessary mourning process… it’s called ‘distancing’!

This same ‘distancing’ from another perspective: As the victim continues to digress through the various stages leading toward demise, time by itself tends to bring forth a certain degree of mental and emotional distancing. Such a process, if you embrace it, quite often helps the Caregiver continue to work through the various stages of mourning and much of the time without you even realizing it you will have worked through much of the mourning process by the time the victim dies. From my perspective of life, it seems sure, by the way, that this seemingly automated ‘system of life’ is indeed a plan that has been arranged by God, Himself, in His effort to help each of us work through our mourning process. And that same ‘system of life’ also helps us better and more quickly work through the three questions of grief as noted above. (1, 2, 3)

My own experience…

Do you remember the Biblical story when King David took Bathsheba? She became pregnant and had a child. The child became ill and began to visibly move toward death. King David with an honest heart and with great intensity went through what is likely every emotion known to man as he sought both man and God to heal his child. Still, the child died. Inasmuch as King David had been in the pits of despair throughout this ordeal, his servants were fearfully exclaiming their wonder at what he would do because the child had died. King David surprised all by washing himself and once again becoming a ‘new’ man looking forward to a good future with all hope. When the inquiry came forth, King David basically stated the time for pain and mourning had occurred all throughout that period during which his child was experiencing his debilitating disease and was yet alive on Earth. Now that death had claimed him, King David recognized his son would never again experience even so much as a tear… and of equal importance to King David, he would one day experience a far better future with his child because through God, he would both see and live with his child again!

So then, coupled with accomplishing the greater essence of my mourning when Mom was yet alive on Earth… due to the ‘distancing’ noted above… indeed, what better thing than to know that Mom is now happier and at greater peace than she’s ever known… because she is now with the Lord!

You see, perhaps as long as three years before her death I realized I’d become somewhat distant both emotionally and mentally from my Mom in the sense that in many ways I was simply performing a clinical necessity. But from a different perspective, at the same time I also (thankfully) discovered I was both mentally and emotionally closer to her than I had been since very early childhood. That, because within that same progressively enhanced, yet ‘distant clinical offering’ I was providing, I was also bestowing real, honest, deep love… because she was like a child without understanding who was in desperate need of love. My next stage of comprehension was brought to light when I learned and fully understood I was loving both the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ person! The same Mom, but knowing better how to love her.

Distancing for Me…

Know that ‘Distancing’ is a natural coping mechanism designed by God, Himself. Its purpose is to help a person work through the mental and emotional traumas which accompany any Care Giver as he or she progresses through escalating difficulties related to providing ever more intensive care for an Alzheimer’s victim. And surely the coming death. God’s design is complete in this matter because, interestingly enough, when I now remember Mom… though the ‘new’ (clinical) person served its purpose while she remained alive, my mind and heart does not now even in the slightest way momentarily identify with that person. I remember ONLY the ‘old’; the REAL Mom I’d always known. So you see, ‘distancing’, particularly that which is automatically set in place by God, is important to embrace; even vital. But that ‘distancing’ is formulated and embraces the Care Giver ONLY for the specific process of enabling the Care Giver to more easily enter into the mourning process while the Alzheimer’s victim remains alive. Not, I repeat… NOT …to take you from nor diminish your love for the person you’ve loved for so long. For me, at Mom’s death that very same ‘new and clinically distant’ person died and completely disappeared from thought. It is as though the person Mom turned into as a result of the crud of the disease never existed and was never a factor in any part of my life. BUT as abstract as it might sound, at her death the ‘old’ Mom, the real Mom jumped back into my brain and embraced it in wholeness. I now only remember who my Mom had always been to me. The ‘new person – i.e. the coping mechanism’… is gone. And I suggest the same might become true of you.

Friend, Care Giver, even though increasingly different from the person you knew, I encourage you to purposefully strive to learn how to love your afflicted ‘new’ loved one to a progressively higher degree throughout the length of their illness. At the same time, for what will surely become positive results learn to accept and make good use of the natural mental and emotion ‘distancing’ that occurs between the two of you. Try hard for their sake… because through your endeavors they’ll ever sense your increasingly more deep love. And though it is an understandable dilemma we’re faced with, try to avoid the exhibit of your love simply becoming a mirror of your tiredness or what might even be a developing apathetic functionality due to ‘clinical’ care. By comprehending and activating this ‘distancing’ as God prescribes, you’ll become better enabled to properly provide the best care giving you are able and also… be able to work through things smoothly after your loved one has left this Earth. And yes, I understand… especially in the beginning of your attempt to identify, embrace and put this whole thought into practice may well be an extremely difficult concept in itself to accomplish… but the rewards toward the victim and to you are great.

Absurdities ???

In closing this topic, let me say that men may well have the ability to think better along the lines of ‘distancing’ than do women. For better or worse, who knows, but men seem to have a greater ability to ‘compartmentalize’ various things that impact them as well as the things they are working through… than do women. Men (and some women) might be able to view what has been written above and make sure sense out of it. Women, on the other hand, in that they are perhaps by nature more universally loving and wholly nurturing than are men, might not view the above in the same manner. Women (and some men) might read the above and not only find it full of bologna, (absurd) but not see the slightest bit of sensible human reasoning behind the consideration of ‘distancing’. They might even view it as a self fostered form of abandonment. Therefore, what has been written has only been written from my perspective knowing that from personal experience it has for me been well considered and well reasoned. Even logical in its deductions and surely fruitful… to me …in its results. I hope you have found at least something of value in your review of the above information and whatever value you’ve found… you strive to employ in the hope that it may make more easy the difficulties you’ll come to face throughout your Care Giving experience, and surely after the death of your loved one.

Relief…

Yes, dependent upon the length of time you’ve been a Care Giver, the degree the illness devastated your loved one as well as the perhaps even extreme lack of familial or other respite you’ve had from siblings and other family members, you… WILL …experience some degree of relief. The worst part about experiencing relief, naturally, are the feelings of guilt that come forth with it.

You must learn to recognize such thoughts are normal. Don’t beat yourself up for having such thoughts. Don’t beat yourself up for either discovering or coming to grips with the reality that you ‘should have, could have and if given the opportunity again, would have done better. Rather, focus on life and begin to live it as The loving God of the Bible would have you experience it.

NOTE: Friend, the ‘distancing’ I wrote of above… if embraced, will almost certainly help you work through a good degree of the ‘relief’ considerations you feel. The ‘relief’ concerns will be less noticeably destructive because, 1) you’ve already not only somewhat distanced yourself from your life long loved one, but, 2) you’ll remember that even though you’ve sought protective ‘distancing’, you’ve also sought to continue to provide ever enhanced care for your ‘new’ loved one, as well. The normal feelings of ‘relief’ you experience will be more quickly overcome because you’ll know you had all along encompassed love for both the ‘old’ and the ‘new’. You’ve done all you could do!

Forgiveness…

When caring for an Alzheimer’s victim, do we remember the ills of the past? The ills relative to the personal conflicts the Alzheimer’s victim had with us? Almost certainly! That’s just the way life is. Thankfully though, knowing the victim is in the process of dying, we have the occasion to try to make things right. That is, until their mind digresses to a point there can be no more real communication. But friend, even then you can still lay to rest the ills which might still grip certain segments of your soul. Though you may not receive the responses from your loved one you’d like, the ultimate parting in death may well leave you with peace in knowing that concerning the both of you, truly… all is well. They because they are free of the disease and you because in many important, soul serving ways… you’ve learned to better love them.

If there is enough time before The Rapture and utter chaos occurs on this Earth (See… Demise of the USA) I’ll finalize another WebSite specifically structured toward seeing the necessity of… as well as truly discovering the relative… ease …of forgiving oneanother. [Oh... we make it so difficult!!!] See… What does God think when we ‘pee’ on Him? You may wish to also see… ‘Forgiveness‘

In the meanwhile, here are a couple of thoughts to consider…

I believe that if any thinking, reasonable person would set aside more than a moment in life and while casting aside every non lasting consideration life offers, really begin to think about what they’d like more than anything else… they’d wish to go back in life and make right all the ill words they ever spoke, the ill things they ever did or the ill words and ill things they were even a part thereof. They’d want to take back all the hurt and pain they themselves ever caused or were a part of. Moreover, I believe they’d wish those from whom they asked forgiveness would be of the same nature… and joyfully grant that forgiveness allowing peace to unfold. (Particularly upon remembering the sins the seeker of forgiveness have themselves also brought upon others.)

That said… friend, your now deceased loved one surely views quite differently the whole of what life really encompasses. They now fully comprehend a greater whole of life because if they ever had a question about it… though they know they are now dead, they also now know they remain alive in one place or other. Surely then, the things which were once thought to encompass all… were only a shadow of this which they now experience… the greater whole. Therefore, things which were perhaps even life long ‘important’ to them, are no longer. Though it is not possible to take into Heaven regrets, ‘should have, could have or would have’ considerations… if such things were possible to carry in, what great burdens each of us would carry! The point of this thought is… from your loved one’s perspective, all they ever instigated or they simply didn’t do or follow through on in order to help make your life better is now more dearly sorrowful to them than ever before. And anything that they might have felt you, Care Giver, ‘should have, could have or would have’ done better for their sake throughout their entire life is now from their perspective… completely unimportant. Not only forgiven, but more importantly… forgotten, as well. Friend, should you retain any lack of forgiveness for anything he or she who has now died ‘should have, could have or would have’ done to make your life better, or you, their life better… inasmuch as they are now dead, anything and everything that is still bothersome to you… remains only… in your brain …it is only you who keeps alive and nurtures such internally festering ills. And it remains only… you …who will continue to suffer by your choosing to retain any of the old pain. Friend, it’s time through forgiveness to release from your being every single one of perhaps countless considerations which will otherwise remain within you. Its only purpose to continue to bring ill to your future… and perhaps the future of your own loved ones. It’s not worth it! Strive to forgive and to begin to fully comprehend the reality that you’ve been forgiven.

You may now wish to review things of a happier note…

Lighter Side

For additional information on this topic…

Legalities

More about Forgiveness…

Forgiveness