Maybe caregiving is beautiful

Turning the visceral and angry into something eventually soft

When my mother had a fall just short of her front door, I arrived on the scene with her surrounded by paramedics, her blood on the bricks outside. She was upright but in pain. She broke her shoulder and fractured her nose, as well as her confidence. It was the beginning of many difficult months for both of us.

During her recovery she had to sleep upright in a chair for weeks, getting up several times a night to go to the bathroom. She was in a rehabilitation center for a little while (a nightmare story for another time), but eventually she had to come home, and during the most intense parts of her recovery I lived with her at her place, leaving my husband to fend for himself in the mornings with the kids and school. Mom needed help pulling her pants up and down for each bathroom trip so that took priority.

I was working at the time and had to do things I didn’t think myself capable of. I balanced zoom calls with doctors appointments and meals and meds. It kinda cracked me? Somehow I managed to get through it. I remember the showers especially though. I didn’t have help lined up yet, and some family members struggled with the idea of having a stranger around all the time, so a lot of the most private care came to me, the daughter. I did not…