Still Alive, But Barely!

The title is a bit dramatic but is depictive of my feelings this evening. I just came off a weekend of duty at Fairview. Mr. P and Mrs. Pr were a delight--no problem at all, but Mama's dementia was in fine form, especially this morning. I usually don't take her to church because it is so much work for me to lift the wheelchair in and out of the car, she can't hear very well, doesn't really know who's preaching, wonders why she went when she gets home, has to go to the bathroom while there, which is a process in and of itself, etc. etc. etc. You get the picture. On top of that, most of the time when I ask her if she wants to go, she says she doesn't feel like it.

Sooooo, this morning I didn't even ask her. I decided that it just wasn't worth the hassle for me to make the effort to take her. In fact, I even decided that I'd probably never do it again because of all I just said and more besides. Besides, most of the time she doesn't even know it's Sunday. But today she did and she wondered when we were going to church. When I told her we weren't and explained a little of the reason why, oh my. . .oh my. . . oh my. . .she had really been looking forward to hearing that black man preach! She'd never heard him before, and on and on and on and on. I finally decided that I just was not able to sit and listen to her crying, berating me, etc. so I went in to the piano to minister to myself and maybe to her by playing for a good while. She came in and told me it wasn't doing any good for me to play and she was still crying. (This after 20 minutes or so). At this point what would you do? Nothing I could say satisfied her in any way, shape, manner or form, and she just kept on crying and fussing. I felt like I kind of lost my composure at this point, but then told her I thought we needed to pray together and she agreed. Thank you God for hearing those prayers. She did seem to quiet down more after that and I made it through the rest of the day one way or another. Tight shoulders and emotional exhaustion are the main after effects this evening.

I didn't even want to talk about it when I saw Neil, but I did tell him that I can understand why people might be tempted to turn to drink for an escape! Sorry if that seems awful, but I am not planning to try it so don't worry. . .