We exist in a parallel universe and we can choose whoever we want to be, time jump mentally, spiritually and physically. All we need is practice. Take it from Albert Einstein.

Love and kisses,

Marylou

Final six:

1. Time is a circle.

9. End of the world.

12. Time that stands still.

14. Book of life.

20. Infinite span of time.

30. Birds in a bell jar.

My list has changed a little from the first one I made, and also I have added a couple more, but I think for my final design, I may aim for five or six installations.

1.  Time is a circle.

7.  Time in which cause and effect are erratic.

9.  End of the world.

12. Time stands still.

13. No time, only images.

14. Book of life.

17. Time flows backwards.

19. Time is a sense.

20. Infinite span of time.

25. Time is like religion.

28. Time bounces back and forth.

30. Birds in a bell jar.

1. Time is a circle.
2. Time that goes back and forth – living life more than once, making the wrong choice could change the future.
3. Time has three dimensions.
4. Mechanical time & body time.
5. Time flows for slowly the farther away from the centre of the earth.
6. Time is an infinite ruler, time is absolute.
7. Time in which cause and effect are erratic.
8. Time does pass, but little happens.
9. End of the world.
10.  Time in which people get stuck in time alone.
11.  Passage of time brings increasing order.
12.  Time stands still.
13.  No time, only images.
14.  Book of life – world without memory, is a place of the present; the past only exists in each person’s ‘book of life’ filled with their history.
15.  Time flows not evenly but fitfully – people receive a fitful glimpse of the future.
16.  The effect of speed and time.
17.  Time flows backwards.
18.  Time that only lasts 24 hours – people only live one day.
19.  Time is a sense.
20.  Infinite span of time – everything can be accomplished.
21.  Time is not a quantity but a quality.
22.  A world without future, live for the present.
23.  Time is a visible dimension.
24.  Time is discontinuous.
25.  Time is like religion.
26.  Time is a local phenomenon.
27.  World of fixed future.
28.  Time bounces back and forth producing an infinite number of images, melodies, of thoughts.
29.  World of shifting past.
30.  Birds in a bell jar – capture a bird & time will stop.

It takes you places.

At first, you might start out caregiving heroically–feeling that you can make a difference. You can “fix” this problem–that your loved one’s condition can be bettered if you could just…get in there…find the right doctor, get on the right meds, coordinate the proper level of care…

It’s a tough day when you finally realize you can’t fix your loved one.

You can’t fix their disease.

You can do very little to make anything about this “better.”

You learn to just live, love, and hope to be granted some small level of grace.

You may feel as if you’ve lost them forever and this can cause you to grow bitter if you’re not careful. We don’t like not being in control, not getting results.

 But what if one of the goals/purpose/benefits of your loved one getting ill, facing death is what it does to you, the caregiver? What if part of this is about you?

What caregiving does to you, asks of you, unearths in you? 

I’m not trying to be Pollyanna here.

Sometimes it all feels useless. You didn’t sign up for a life lesson, and this is really shitty. Pardon my French, but I’ve been there, and I used far more “French” than that in my caregiving years! 

If someone told me that I was supposed to get something out of caregiving, there would be some days that I would have definately thrown some heavy, possibly sharp object directly at that person’s head.

But as the target talking here, I’m going to duck and say it again:

What are you supposed to get out of this experience? 

I can’t, I refuse to believe that caregiving is just this terrible, horrible thing that you have to endure because life’s just like that. Caregiving is so much more.

As much as it feels as if your loved one’s personality is gone–that you’re caring for a body, not your mom, remember they’re deep inside. When my mother started to lose her essence, I had to sort of go on auto-pilot. I had to care-give because of my commitment, my integrity (which I was groping and grasping to hold on to).

The difficulty lies in the fact of what we knew they once were–vivacious, intelligent, gifted people who made an impact on the world.

I was in a caregiver support group recently where a woman shared that her husband was a Yale Law professor, and now he can’t even dress himself. Her grief was palatable. She was holding onto who he was–what he did, what he presented to the world. She hadn’t let that part of him go yet.

Although you may only get glimpses of your loved one, hold onto the knowledge that they’re there. It becomes a treasure hunt. I began to seek out glimpses of my mother.

I started to notice smaller and smaller details: the way her hands moved, the way she’d brush her hair out of her face. That was still her. I didn’t use my hands like that–that was her own distinct way. As the bigger, more obvious ways of communicating diminished, it helped to pull in, and find my mother as if we were enjoying a game of hide and seek.

Some nugget, some kernel of their spirit is still inside.

Since the release of Mothering Mother, I’ve spoken to several thousand caregivers and their loved ones across the country. I’ve visited care facilities, and I’ve found that no two people are alike. No two people with Alzheimer’s react the same way. Even in their “lostness” is unique.

I knew I had to let go of who my mother was, and sadly, I knew I had turned her into a list: mother, wife, minister, cook.

I had to decide to love who my mother is: a person, a woman, the core of a spirit.  

I read about a couple whose son had been in a motorcycle accident years before and was brain injured. He was still alive, but he wasn’t the son they knew before the accident.

They decided to hold a memorial service or celebration service–even though he had not passed away. 

They needed to let go of the son they once had–in order to embrace their new son. This new son still needed to be loved, still needed parents, but as long as they were holding onto that old son/old image–it hurt too much.

This journey, this revelation changes them–and in the end, oftentimes makes them a better person capable of more love and peace than could have ever imagined.

I love time theories and quantum mechanics, (I wrote several papers on it in college) and I read a great article by a physicist that explained that time and events(or place–for us to conceive time, we have to intersect it with place) can be seen as a wheel with each moment being a spoke–and our memory adds meaning to that event–so some moments or events “spike out.”

Each moment, each event stands apart and will always exist.

For me, my mother, myself, and all the moments I hold dear exist forever.

 My favorite author, Madeleine L’Engle says,

“The great thing about growing older is that we get to keep

every age we’ve ever been.”

 Carol D. O’Dell

Family Advisor at www.Caring.com

Syndicated Blog at www.OpentoHope.com

Kunati Publishers, www.kunati.com/mothering-mother-memoir-by-car/ – 95k