"Just give me a minute!"
    I've been in twice with the intention of awakening my mother today: Once at her 12-hour-sleep-mark, 1330, and once just a few minutes ago at 1400. Both times she looked so peacefully involved in sleep, what I hope is a healing sleep, that I decided to give her another half-hour. I think she could use an extra hour, today. It was apparent, last night, when she headed for bed, at my insistence, that she'd been up longer than was probably a good idea, although that was at her insistence. The allure of Touched by an Angel episodes was very strong, yesterday, especially since we'd watched the special features in the first season set, including two short interviews with Martha Williamson which greatly interested Mom. At about 0110, when we'd polished off a third-in-a-row episode and she was clamoring for yet another, I noted that both her eyes were swimming in white, she was leaning severely to her right even in the wheelchair (she spent the evening in the wheelchair, yesterday, to avoid what promised to be a couple of very difficult transfers), she was obviously exhausted and was beginning get "stupid-silly". Mom agreed and, without reluctance, assented to bedding down for the night.
    Sometimes I'll give her her head. Sometimes, though, especially when she is displaying symptoms of her child-like desire to remain awake into the wee hours so she doesn't "miss anything" but her body is telling me that staying awake is becoming a push-comes-to-shove procedure for her, I'll insist on having my way with her. When I impinge myself on her schedule, though, I frequently forget my environment and attempt to hurry her along to our agreed upon destination. Thus, she finds it necessary to remind me, voicing the declaration that is the title of this post, that, while she may agree to let me set a particular destination, how long it takes her to get to that destination and what she includes in the journey is entirely up to her. Last night I counted three separate reminders, each louder and more irritated than the last. The third prompted me to conduct an internal assessment after she was securely down for the night.
    I was forced to contemplate the way Mom and I approach time in this household versus the way we're told, by our society, to approach time. Our household is much more a How to Be where You Are household, versus a "How to Get Where You Need to Be" household. Although I've enjoyed and fully participated in our relationship with timelessness for a looooong time, I've been particularly aware of it, lately, because the embrace of timelessness around our lives has become tighter and made so many aspects of my part of our journey much easier for me.
    We (intra-national) live in one of many "What time is it?" societies, versus living in an "Is it time?" society. Not that the latter doesn't ever come to the fore. Primarily, though, our society views Time as a regimen that gives meaning to our lives, versus Time being a circumstance to which we give meaning by asking, and answering, for ourselves, "Is it time?" Allowing Time to control us has its purposes, many of which are valuable and some of which continue to affect my life, primarily, and my mother's secondarily. Scheduling the management of our household, including our involvement with Hospice, is a major factor in my part of our life and a minor factor in my mother's, since I try schedule everything around her "schedule". Holidays and special days make demands on my mother's adaptability, much to her continued delight. I think, though, that living with an Ancient One highlights disadvantages of allowing Time to be the Controller, rather than controlling Time.
    One facet I've noticed about our society's attitudes toward living with Ancient Ones is that we consider it a good thing that caregivers try to keep their care recipients to societally approved schedules and Ancient Ones' schedules be damned. Keeping an Ancient One on a schedule devised for Less Than Ancient Ones is supposed to help keep them oriented and feeling "involved", especially if they are displaying signs of dementia, light or heavy. Otherwise, though, it's a part of the dictum, which is mostly silent but, oh, my, so tidal in its silence it drowns our observations and our better instincts: "Change your life as little as possible to suit your Ancient One's life; your life is the more important of the two (or three or more). You'll have problems if you don't insist that your schedule is the important schedule...and problems make you a less effective caregiver."
    Even institutions designed to house Ancient Ones live by the clock. It's not only considered a social necessity, in the lives of the charges as well as the staff, its a monetary necessity. It simply wouldn't be cost effective (at least not in our current economy) to run housing facilities the way Mom and I run our home. Does it do Ancient Ones any harm? We haven't studied this, yet. Does it do the staff harm? If stress is harmful, and it seems that, in overdose, it is, it certainly adds stress to the lives of those whose instincts are toward compassionate caregiving but whose paychecks are based on efficient caregiving. Is is harmful to our society? Well, we're barely in touch with our Ancient Ones because they don't fit into our schedules, thus they don't fit into our lives. Relatively speaking, this is, of course, just the way it is. But, we're at a point where we're beginning to question the wisdom of this monumental disconnect between our "approved" families and our Ancient Ones, who, while we may continue to consider them family, are, somehow, not welcome at our tables unless they are prepped by others while we are prepping the meal and delivered, preferably in a wheelchair, on time.
    It's important for me to note, here, that I'm not talking about developing patience. If you have to be patient with someone you're still letting Time tell you what's important and you're not entering into your Ancient One's schedule, nor are you giving that schedule its due. Patience is what you adopt while you're waiting for someone to catch up to you, or, more accurately, your determination of the importance of Time. When you surrender to the importance of the activity and/or the life to which you're attending, Time no longer controls you, you control Time...and patience is no longer required.
    How can we moderate the differences between Ancient One Time and Less than Ancient One Time? Truthfully, in this economic period in our existence, if our entire society did it the way I'm doing it our economy would collapse. I know this because my personal economy collapsed long ago.
    But, we're aware, now, again, that we're missing people, especially since the number of people we're missing comprises a huge segment of our society, growing every day. We're on the verge of having to question Time's place in our lives. This is good. It's not going to be easy, but it promises to expand our ideas about what a society is and how inclusive it should be; what our obligations are to the most vulnerable members of our society and how we should go about discharging our obligations; what the value of a person is when that person requires a high level of care to survive and thrive.
    The clock is ticking. If we're smart, we'll make the most of This Time and work to gather yet another and another of us back into a connected, all-inclusive fold. If we're not, the clock will soon tick off each of our individual descents into social and personal oblivion.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 14:08   email  this post