It's been a strange week, with my father and his situation living constantly in my head. Sure, he's out of hospital now, but in a Care Home in Cardross. There's a finality about the "Care Home" status which I'm finding hard to live with. This will not be his final place of residence, as he still desperately wants back to Glasgow and is on a waiting list for that to happen. The list is long and he's nowhere near the top.
It's the "Care Home" leap, and the finality of it. He'll never again be independent or able to care for himself, and I know that now I have to detach a bit, let him try to settle in his new surroundings, and visit when I can. He can come out with us still for a wee while, but his short term memory is woeful and he needs someone with him if he is to venture outside the big house.
The other residents are mostly in a more advanced state of physical and mental need, and maybe that's why he, himself, is pretty depressed just now. There have been lots of tears and a day when he did nothing but cry.
All sorts of feelings and emotions are snaking through my brain. Could we have done anything else that would have prevented this? Was it the right decision to bring him to Dumbarton in the first place? Every child must have some sort of "guilt" if that's the right word, when a parent is put into an establishment like this?
Dad himself is good at pressing the right buttons and stirring up emotions such as those!
At present I'm working on the Serenity Prayer, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change!
2 comments:
You are not God. You are not omniscient or omnipotent. You did what was best at the time given what you knew and were capable of doing and no one can demand more.
I know where you are in this ... when my father had to go into residential nursing care becasue my mother could no longer get him to his feet when he fell over, I used to visit and then come out and rail against God for 5 minutes or so until I felt better. God is big enough to take it and allow us the freedom to scream our frustration and guilt at him/her.
Some 10 years later we had to move my mother out of her home into warden-assisted accomodation. As her health diminished it wasn't the right place for her. We finally got her into somewhere where she would have lots of contact and opportunities. She died less than a fortnight later, half her belongings still not unpacked.
Feelings of guilt? Of course. regrets? Many. But viewed dispassionatley, the family did what we believed to be the best for both parents at the time. No one can do more.
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