Watching Regret

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeWatching Regret: Yesterday I went to the nursing home twice to visit my mother. The first time, in the morning, I found her lying in bed, under the soft wool blanket I had brought to her from her house. She said she was cold, so I found her a sweatshirt to put on. When she sat up to put it on, I was shocked to see that she wasn't wearing a shirt. When I asked her why, she laughed, and said "It's hard to explain." We talked some more about why she was at the nursing home, and what she needed to do in order to be able to go home (physical therapy, mostly). But she won't, or can't, understand any of this.

Later, I went back and took her dog with me, hoping that a visit from him might help her get oriented and motivated. But it wasn't helpful, at all. She was still in bed. Tracy ran around her room, looking at everything except for her. He did not appear to recognize her, and would not come to her when she called. She said that I had "thoroughly alienated" him. She talked in a very confused way about the terrible "plans" I have for her, and about how she has been "traded," and "bought." When I ask her what she means, she says she can't explain, and will tell me later. And she says, in no uncertain terms, that she is absolutely not going to talk to her doctor, or do any kind of physical therapy.

Mother is back to the confused state of delirium that she was in when I first took her to the hospital, 2 weeks ago. I asked the nursing staff to get some blood drawn to check her electrolyte levels. And then I went home.

And I am watching my mind as all kinds of regrets present themselves, the endless self-questioning and self-recrimination and self-justification... (noticing that the word "self" is heavily involved in what this mind is doing... )

It goes like this: What should I be doing differently? Should I go over there and spend all day with her? Should I put her in a different facility? Hire a private-duty caregiver to give her extra attention? And what should I have done differently before events turned in this direction? Could I have spent more time with her, despite her paranoia and bitterness? Would that have helped?

And of course all these thoughts are about control. The story my mind is selling to me is that I can and should control things, including my mother and her illness. And I recognize that this is not unlike my mother's own life-long efforts to control everything and everybody.

But this is not stuff to be controlled. This is just grief, just dying, just illness, just a part of this human life, and there are many, many people who are going through what my mother is going through, with daughters (and sons) who are going through what I am going through.

It's difficult, but essential, to do the work of acceptance, the giving up of the mental battle that we wage against the things that do not lend themselves to control, or manipulation, or demands that things be different.

And right now there is nothing really to be done except to keep noticing all these thoughts, knowing that they are just thoughts, noticing the feelings of grief and fear and frustration, paying attention to physical sensations, and bringing my attention to sights, and sounds, and to work that needs to get done.