Some Pretty Soon Day

I used to use that phrase alot. It was what I told myself each time my heart ached for more. More than I had given myself. The other life that I was sure was waiting for me and was going to still be there when I got around to fixing the life I already had. Then, one day, I just stepped away from the life I had built. I told the kids I was changing and left the husband at a new place to live so I could begin again within comfortable reach of those same people that I had trained to need me. Need me they did and use me, well, I allowed them to use me even after I made them all leave. We have all grown and are so much better for our efforts to change. We are the lucky ones, I think.
I have an elder who makes me consider these things so often. She had a wonderful marriage and was happy living her life with her husband, watching her girls grow and move away to begin their lives as mothers and wives. Then her precious friend and husband passed away and she had no choice but to change. I just learned recently that her present husband married her within six months of the death of her first husband. Thing is, the family learned that her challenge with Alzheimer's began in that same year, as well. The girls are women now and mothers of grown children. They hired me because they live in different states and can not be here to protect their mom. Her current husband seems to love her dearly but the disease is aggressive and she is lost so easily. This womans' daughters fret over her safety and personal care like good daughters should. I am able to accomplish so much because I am not them and the husband tends to trust me so far.
I am with this dear, dear woman each Monday morning for what I call, "girl time". I make sure she showers and during her shower I talk to her husband and try to find the challenges that I can help them with. He is surviving cancer this year so he is finding this care-giving for his loved one to be a challenge and something he didn't sign on for. He was looking for her to care for him. Most men, in my experience, look for it at his age. (86) Lots of husbands and wives that I have worked for get a sort of anger when they find the person they married is disappearing while some disease is moving in and taking over. In this home, the sort of anger I speak of means the husband loses patience having to repeat himself. He tells me that he has to yell at her to get her to shower or floss her teeth. I understand his frustration but I always remind him that she can't help her problem and that yelling is unacceptable. When they are alone, who knows how it goes. I guess I fret a little, too.
After the shower I get the towels and bed linen in the washer and now, the husband has started doing the laundry after we leave and this is good. He wasn't before my entrance into his sameness. He is attempting a cooperative attitude and I am grateful. The wife giggles at the thought of it and always says, "Good", when I tell her he did chores.
I get her to a day spa and get her hair washed and styled each week, and then cut once a month. We also get a pedicure done twice a month, hence the reference to "girl time". The day we are at the day spa, one of the other hair techs has her group of elderly women come in for their hair and I can make my client feel like she is a part of the group without her requirement of participation. The habit is working and she is happier. I want that for her.
Sometimes I look at the situation I have just explained to you and wonder if she ever feels trapped like I did . Does she remember that she married this guy and why she decided to do it? Does she appreciate her choices anymore? Both of them needed the company. Both of them were alone and tired of being alone. Now is 9 years later and life is what it is. Did it occur to them that this was a possibility? I doubt it. How can we see an aggressive disease coming? Now both of them fight something that they can't help each other with. They are still alone but together in the lives they created. There are no "pretty soon days" coming now. They are in the last decades of their lives and I am there to help things go smoothly so they can just enjoy the little things company can offer.
Do I compare their last decade to my own life? Yes, absolutely. Do I have any ideas for my own choices? I only hope I can find the happiness that the wife expresses when she talks about the life she thinks she has. Maybe her opinion of her day to day is disconnected and sometimes incorrect but to her, she is where she is supposed to be. I am also where I am supposed to be. This much I know. I never use that phrase anymore because I brought those days here.
I created the change and survived the transitions as they presented themselves. Perhaps the effort taught me to see these people for the humans that they are. I am referral only and I work only in the town that I live. The fact that I am still able to pay for this life tells you that I am getting income enough to support my life and the life of the child I still have at home with me, from a business that I have come to love. I think I told you before, this life I built will not make me wealthy, no, I am not pulling in a big income. Just enough not to lose ground and I am always grateful to have employment when so many do not. The extra part that keeps me taking new clients when treasured ones pass is the love and kindness. The families are so often out of ideas and feeling the pain of worry and fear of loss. The reality of watching our elders lose ground and fall from the ability to maintain themselves is an awesome reality even for the strongest heart. We only now the person we think that they are. Then when they need us to take over, we find other sides of them that we never guessed at.
That is where I come in. The families have so much courage to hire me. I try my best not to let them down. Our elders are so vulnerable. I try to be an advocate when I find someone unable to speak for themselves. I try to teach when I find them able to still learn. I always respect the life I find. These people, who ever they were in their youth, are here now, in my care. That means someone loves them so I do, too.
Some pretty soon day is here, got a plan?