The Joy of Rambling

THIS IS REALITY

I teeter back and forth about how and when to start letting go. He did not qualify for hospice after the in-home evaluation a month ago. They said he was close, but they needed to see more indicators to put him over the edge. So, he needs to get worse in order to qualify for services reserved for those who are close to dying. I get it. It’s the government and they have regulations and bullet points, lists to check off and proof to document.

The very day after that evaluation, Jim slept for 24 hours. To be honest, I worried he was dead in the bedroom and was afraid to go check. To my surprise, however, he got up around 10 am and came out to the kitchen with no recollection of the nurse visit or the long snooze. But this began a new season of sleeping through the day and refusing to eat. He says he’s not hungry. He says he doesn’t want to get fat, which is funny because when he was 288 six months ago, he insisted he looked great. Now he is 245. His daily meal is a McDonald’s shake–the only calories he won’t reject. Prior to that he was eating a small meal once a day which he claimed he was too full to finish. 

So, this morning when I made him go to the doctor and it was noted that he had lost another 7 pounds, Dr. Jackson told me that she was surprised he hadn’t qualified for hospice. She had reviewed her notes on Jim with a nurse friend at a different hospice provider who said her company would have certainly qualified him. Every company is a little different however, and the one we used, recommended by a memory care facility we visited, felt he wasn’t ready yet. Today Dr. Jackson put in another referral to the company she originally spoke with. 

So, is he dying? I mean, yes. We’re all dying. He is dying of Alzheimer’s, so it will most likely occur sooner than, say, someone like me who is relatively healthy. But qualifying for hospice means that he is on the final journey. It’s such a jumble of mixed emotions I carry around on my back. Hospice will give me in-home services that I could definitely use. But hoping he qualifies means hoping he is dying soon. And though I want his misery to end, do I want him to be gone? I do want him to be free from pain and torment. Absolutely. But imagining life when he’s not here anymore makes my stomach drop.

Will I come home to an empty house and feel lonely? Will my life feel pointless once my caregiving responsibilities are over? How will I clear his things out of the closet? What do I do with his old memorabilia that only held value to him? Papers, documents, letters, photos. Most of them mean nothing to me. But it will be all that is left of him. How do I rid my house, my life, of the only remnants that remain of this man I’ve spent the last 22 years with? I’m a little frightened of the “after” and yet I abhor the “now”. What a strange new world this anticipation of death creates. It’s dark and foreboding. It’s light and freeing. It’s filled with hope, guilt, sadness and elation. It is a distasteful concoction that I’m forced to drink. The only out is unacceptable. 

THIS IS ALSO REALITY

Yes I am tempted to despair, but I need only to look up. My faithful God, who knows and sees all—He’s got this. I don’t have to carry it. He will see me through.

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For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for you are with me; your rod and your staff they comfort me. Psalms 23:4

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
    my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. Psalms 118:2