The last post on aging parents garnered more comments than any other in the history of this blog, so clearly this is a topic that touches many people. The experiences people have range from the touching and poignant (“Do you know who I am, Mom?” “Yes, you’re my baby”) to the heartbreaking (the father whose dying words were obscenities). As I said in my last comment to the previous post, “These posts explore the pain that is at the very center of what love is, and what life is.”
The cultural context for our Western way of dealing (or not dealing) with aging parents was expressed in a nutshell by the comment “The difficult part was moving a person to a care facility when all they want to do is go home.” I remember when I myself was in a rehab hospital for three months, and from beginning to end that is all I wanted, to go home (never mind that for most of my time there I was in absolutely no condition to be at home, nor could anyone have taken care of me there).
We all want to go home and be home, wherever that is, and historically it is our parents who first bring us into the world and make a home for us there. We as adult children of our aging or dying parents want to be home too as much as they do, and maybe the difficult lesson from the Buddhist tradition to be had from this deep desire to be home is that in the end the only true home is this present moment, wherever we happen to be. Any other home is one that we will eventually lose.
Last post I suggested a modification of the Metta prayer (“In caring for my parents, may I be filled with loving kindness.”). Here I would like to begin speaking about a different kind of practice, one inspired by the tonglun or “sending and receiving” compassion practice of Tibetan Buddhism.
If we are caring for aging parents, this practice begins by looking in the mirror. We see the adult that we are, but if we look more closely we can also see the child we once were, in all the stages of our life. That is what our parent sees; they see the child in us, even though we are now the adult that has to now take care of the aging parent as though they were the child—a difficult and complex role reversal.
Keep looking in the mirror; the child we once were is still there, and that child is now grieving for the strong parent that once protected us and now needs our protection. Where is Mom or Dad now, that child is asking? And how is that child feeling?
Next post I will talk about how to practice “sending and receiving” meditation as an offering of compassion to the child who is still within us, and who needs our care inwardly as much as our aging parent needs our care outwardly.
I look forward as always to your comments!
Dear Lew,
I appreciate this blog, both because my mother died a year ago, and because as a Hospice social worker I meet with many people whose mother or father is dying. I have been thinking about my mother a lot around this first anniversary of her death. I used to call her on my birthday and thank her for the gift of my life. I still thank her for the gift of my life, even if she is unable to pick up the phone.
Tova Green
Great minds … Please forgive the length. I just put the finishing touches on the retirement column I write for the little local weekly. Its title, “Dunrovin.”
The truth is, I have been looking for “home” all my life.
Having found it, I think, I’m obviously going to have to redefine the concept for me and rely more on the truth of this observation from the poet, T.S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
What have I been looking for? What “place” is that?
How about my “self” — the self I was before I “fixed” my self to win worldly approval, as Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen likes to say in “Kitchen Table Wisdom.” In other words, home is wherever I can be my “authentic” self. The “real” me. “Comfortable in my own skin.” And mean it.
You know how when you go to somebody’s home, and they say, “Oh, just sit any place!” and you know they mean it? You just feel so comfortable, the hosts are so clearly at ease, as my father used to say, “A baby could play with you.”
I once visited friends like that and, after a while, asked, not entirely unseriously, if I could come and stay.
“Go to your room!” the hostess said, flattered.
In my sturdy unpretentious comfortable old house in east Ocean Springs, with its lumpy easy chair, second-hand books, Bose stereo and CDs in the front, and little home office in the back with birds squabbling over the seed on the windowsill, squirrels doing a high wire act along the top of the backyard fence, doves bathing in the birdbath (and doing other things in it too, bad birds!), and with the bench on the pinestraw under the sheltering trees I can see from my window giving me an unfamiliar feeling of inner peace, I feel as if I’m finally “home,” finally done “exploring,” finally “here” to stay.
As you can tell, I like meaningful quotes. I’d like to end with this favorite from the philosopher, Blaise Pascal:
“On the occasions when I have pondered over men’s various activities, the dangers and worries they are exposed to at court or at war, from which so many quarrels, passions, risky, often ill-conceived actions and so on are born, I have often said that man’s unhappiness springs from one thing alone, his incapacity to stay quietly in one room. A man wealthy enough for life’s needs would never leave home to go to sea or besiege some fortress if he knew how to stay at home and enjoy it,”
Blessings.
Dear Lewis,
Over the past two months my father who is turning 74 on thursday has been ill on & off. The main symptoms were his diabetes flaring up so he had to be put on Insulin injections & it was difficult for him intially to accept the change but he has now as he feels better. He is on a diet plan, but now then he would eat something that would increase his sugar levels. It becomes very disheartening to say no to him as then I see him suffering, I am very close to him. This brings in memories of our childhood he never said NO to any of our demands. He is very active, he walks 5 kms daily, reads & does lot of research though he has retired from the business for the past two years. I miss walking with him daily to the post office, though spend time with him in the evenings. I am currently reading a book – The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying by Sogyal Rinchope. There is the fear at the back of mind of loosing him, though I know that we are in a cycle of birth & death. I am very grateful & Indebited to both my parents daily in my prayers that they gave me birth & that they are such great people.
With Metta
Atula Shah
Lewis, something you said, ” that child is now grieving for the strong parent that once protected us and now needs our protection”. . .I felt tears burst out and realized for the first time that I am grieving, still, after several years of gradually assuming more and more care for my parents. I am grieving, not only for the loss of their shoulders to lean on; but for their loss of home and independence and strength and happiness. Grieving for their grief.
Yesterday, during our weekly visit to their assisted apartment, I mentioned to them that we were nearly ready to put their house on the market. I saw the pain in her face, and she said, “Oh, I wish you wouldn’t do that. I just want to be there again. I just want to go home.” I said the usual things I say to her that don’t help a lot, “You know that home is where Daddy is . . .”, and other platitudes that have been repeated, but surely didn’t ease the pain. Because I think her ideal of home has to do more with the way things used to be when she was happy–longing for my dad’s mind to be intact (he has Alzheimer’s), for him to be caring for her instead of the other way around; longing for her eyesight and the joy of reading books, longing for the routine of weekly church services with dear friends instead of new strangers whose faces she can’t see or imagine. She talks of going home to be with God and that she’s not afraid of death, but is afraid of what lies between now and then–pain, losing Daddy, the unknown terrors. They cling to me and my husband and son in a physical way–our physical presence, I think, is the closest connection with that old life they have now–and we don’t come enough and will be moving far away before long because my husband took another job, and I haven’t told them yet.
I just keep looking for some crack in the wall, some glimmer of light for her to see, day by day when we talk, that does allow relief. Some days we find it, some days we don’t.
“Some days we find it, some days we don’t.” I think that is very true. About a great many things.
Starting about five years ago, my mother, then 81, underwent a series of surgeries, each of which required a stay in a rehab followed by long months of recovery at home. She lived in Florida and I in New York state, but for long stretches of those years I saw her monthly. We emerged from those many visits with a new relationship, almost all of the tension and mistrust between us gone, closer than either of had ever imagined we’d be.
My mother died in June, after 12 days in the hospital and one night in hospice. I arrvied the day after she was admitted to the hospital and stayed until after her death. About a week before she died, my mother asked me how I’d manage after her death. I cried quietly and said I thought it would be hard, but I’d have a lot of support. Then I added that in a way, because of the times we’d shared over those recent years, I’d internalized her, and she would always be with me.
Frankly, I was surprised to hear myself say what even now sounds like bad dialogue from a 1940′s melodrama. The thing is, though, I took the print of her, the sound of her voice, her laughter, her hand on the curve of her cane, her morning bed-head, the feel of her foot in my hand, I have these still, in my body. To remember her, I don’t think of her. Instead, waves of her move through me.
In me too are her impatience, her haste, her lashing tongue, tempered some by years of practice, but there just the same. And in forgiving myself for such less than skillful expression, I find myself forgiving her.
I love this, even though I find it shocking: “The only true home is this moment.” Just last week, my teacher quoted someone, saying, “Impermance is the teaching; mindfulness is the practice.” At the intersection of time and space, we are home.
Thank you for offering the “look in the mirror” practice, Lew.
I found it fascinating, and sobering, to look at my “self” – including this body and its history – as my parents (long deceased) might look at it.
I sometimes wonder how they would – or if they could – understand my life today. It hasn’t turned out as they might have imagined, I’m sure. Shucks, it hasn’t turned out as I might have imagined.
It sometimes happens that, when I’m walking through a shopping district, I glance into a store window and, if the angle is just right, I see this body reflected in the window. Sometimes I startle at the image – Who is that person?
Because this image, in its before-thinking suddenness, doesn’t look like “me!” It’s the image of an old person, with wrinkles and a limp.
Who am I?
Through my therapy and practice, I am able to see myself both “then and now,” without difficulty or surprise. But I learned something this past week: I still mentally “see” my three younger siblings as they were 50-40 years ago! My “baby” sister turned 56 last weekend and I was surprised by that event! “56! How can that be?” My mind reeled with the idea, I still think of her as the littlest of the four of us: Corn-silk hair, infectious grin, and filled with michief. How can she be 56?
Our parents are both deceased, I was their caretaker and with them both when they died. Now I am beginning to realize that despite being 9 years older than the “baby,” I am actually the healthiest, mentally and physically, of our family. (Not bragging, just the facts) I may find myself serving my siblings as I served our parents. I hadn’t thought of that until just now. Rather sobering!
Thank you Lewis for this thoughfull article, If you should know how many people down here benefitted already from your posts, and from Aging as a Spiritual Practice ones. Often, I pick up the phone and translate it to some friends.
Where is home? When I left to England, very young, I wrote somewhere in a little notebook…Home is where your heart is. And somehow, I decided that I would feel at home in England as long as my heart was there too. I moved several times in my life, and in 2003, when I went to live to Canada, I asked myself , who am I? who am I really without all the people who used to sorround me, without my profession through which I was that “somebody”, without my house? and again, I had the experience that as long as I would put my heart in the new place and open it to the new people I met there I felt at home, again. And now I know, that no matter where I live, and for how long, as long as I place my heart in it, the place has my flavour and is Home for me. I take my parents with me wherever I go, although they already passed away, as they live in my Heart. And I can hear their voice so many times, along the day, pointing to me so many things, taking care of me from the inside, softening my pain so often.
Regarding this exercise you mention, with the mirror, there was a very well known chilean therapist whose name was Lola Hoffmann, and she used to say that we should “work” with the photograph of our parents, watching it for some short time a day. She had a special small table and during her lunchtime, she used to watch all the familiar photographs she had there, her parents, her ancestors, her family. She used to say that if you stay for some time watching them, and sharing with them whatever you feel in this moment, something very special starts to happen: sometimes you will be feeling like telling them how angry you are, others you will cry with them, others you might complain to the photographs about your encarnated parents….as the parents in the photograph are your spiritual parents, this is, their souls, to which you can talk about the parents who still are alife around the corner….or about whomever or whatever you feel like. It is a very relaxing practice….like clearing up whatever hasn’t been cleared up until now.
Thanks Lew, for your very inspiring talk today, at IMC. I am the one who spoke at the end about finding the joy and humor in relating to my mother with advanced stages of Alzheimer’s . . .
I am also very grateful to have discovered your blog, and to have read this post. You speak so well of this deep yearning, for all of us to come home. My mother certainly was obsessed with it during her first few months in her nursing home. My daughters who are away for college and post-college experiences also talk about wishing they were home some times. And I know I am always happy to return home after my travels. Home is not just a place, of course. It is a weaving of memories, feelings, sensations, yearning for safety and love, and permanence.
Just to echo your comment about our only true home being the present moment, one of the main draws of mindfulness practice for me, is the sense I have of having come home, at last. From that deep realization, I have garnered considerable strength, and joy, and wisdom.
With gratitude,
Marguerite
Barbara,Thank you for telling us about Lola Hoffman and her therapy technique with parents’ photographs.
And maybe though our only “true” home is the present moment, all of us yearn for and think of our worldly home too, which is a deep need we all have.
The mirror became a friend.
I remember one morning waking up with thoughts about my sense of being; so tumultuous they were at the time; and looking at the mirror pondering. Seeing my face there I peered deeply into the reflection, trying to catch a glimpse of some meaning to the moment. What I saw was an old man. My face was drawn by gravity into fleshy bags. Eyes drooping with lines in the corners that have stories of their own.. A week or more of hair stubble made my face scrubby. Smiling I remarked, talking to myself as I did during that time, I have become my father.
There was a sense of comfort recognizing age showing its tatters. I become my father.
Opening the heart
Cherishing all beings
As wish fulfilling jewels
Who bring causes of happiness
I bow in reverence
I am not alone.
My father died Sept 6, the day after Lew posted this. On Sept 4 & 5, I was with him. He was his usual self on the 4th, except that he was more adamant than ever that he wanted to go HOME. I said “You can; go ahead and go.” He paused, and then asked, “How?” “Just let go.” Later he asked, “Does she know where this new place is?” Referring to the care facility he was in, I assumed. “Yes,” I said, “Not to worry; she knows.” Who? My deceased mother? On the 5th, he was considerably weaker; my sister and I stayed with him. On the morning of the 6th, he died peacefully.
I’m late to this discussion, but I, too, want to thank Barbara for the “sitting with the photograph” exercise. Since my mother died in the 80s, I’ve kept a favorite photograph of her in my office. My mother and I were were not close, but I was glad to be with her when she died. It brought me closer to her and I was able to see her more clearly as a human being, struggling, just like me. I remember seeing her age and getting that cold feeling that our roles were reversing. It made me fearful because I wasn’t sure I was up to the task. I got it again a few years ago as I sat at the wake of my husband’s mother, talking to one of his nephews. He was a grown man with a family of his own, I suddenly realized, and that meant that I was next in line now. When I committed to “The Big Sit” one of things that became clear to me was that my mother’s voice was constantly speaking to me and it was highly critical and pessimistic. I’d been listening to it for years. Thanks to a book I read by Tara Brach, I have been practicing lovingkindness to the little girl listening to her mother’s voice and extending that lovingkindness out to others. It has been my lifeline.