See Me Small

The night is blue with the sky eyes of you.

This memory does float by.

It is only I.

Don't let me fall for I am just small.

That's not all, but yes, I am just small.

Looking back at little shoe prints in the sand,

I look down inside and for once I think I understand.

It's me and I'm here,

and I can hear your call.

Don't let me fall for I am just small.

That's not all, no, that's not all,

but I am small.

I sing big.

I fly high.

I love large.

Time goes by.

The day will be yellow with the sunshine sounds.

I will be here,

but you won't know I'm around

because I'm holding my breath to keep

these feet on the ground.

I thought that I was big.

You know,

I didn't realize that I am small.

Walking in sand and looking back at small tracks.

Little feet.

It was me but it doesn't really matter as much as I thought.

So I still say;

don't lt me fall.

Don't let me fall.

Don't let me fall for I am just small.

Nancy McEldowney

9/10/00

Searching For Some Kind Of Miracle.

I would like to dedicate this entry to the art of closure.

When involved in other peoples lives like I am, it is often I find myself caught in the webs of emotional survival. These families are doing the best they can and really, so am I. Those times when I am contacted for help, it is all too often the families are out of ideas, out of options. They are searching for a miracle and somehow they are guided to me. Yes, I am a miracle but not always the one they are looking for. We are all miracles and I try to honor the miracle in all of us. I believe this attitude is part of what helps me help others.

As the story begins it is me who is leading. The families are always strong people who are in search of strong support. The focus of our attention is the conflict their elder is living with. Usually some disease that is stealing the personal choices and daily freedoms so many of us take for granted. When I have sorted out the places I can truly help, I begin my journey with the end in sight. Not the one where the elder is gone and the family is grieving. No, I always hope for the family. They will eventually have more one on one time with the elder. They will eventually understand the truest fact is that they must celebrate the time they have left with their loved one, no matter what it looks like, no matter how difficult it is to understand. I am a support system they are putting into place. I am helping their elder stay independent as long as it safe and possible.

The end is always coming closer. The end is most often a friend to me as I am always in the same place when I get there. I have to make the effort to release these people from what they consider debt to me. It is too hard for them to understand what to do with me when I am no longer needed. They just remember how many times they felt they needed me. Sometimes it is easy. Sometimes it appears to be conflict when really, all that is happening is the anxiety of the reality. My most recent closure was the three daughters who asked for my help with their mom. She has Alzheimer's and her husband was questionable care while he survived cancer and just plain good old fashioned aging. I hadn't had any openings when they first requested my care but they were so concerned about possible abuse and/or neglect, I gave them a day each week and put the scheduled tasks that used to take that day on my shelf of what to do when I get time. You have read about the journey in past blogs if you are keeping up with my entries. No need for repeat information.

Suffice it to say, we were able to make miracles, we four. The woman, their mom, was a magic bundle of kindness and true beauty. I fell in love with her and even liked her husband in the end. It turned out to be the same as so many other homes I have worked in. He was emotionally exhausted and worried about how this would turn out. Turned out he really did love her so much. One of the last days of his life I was able to take her to his ICU bed where I kept excusing myself for imaginary tasks so they could just sit holding their hands between their noses while they whispered their love to each other. When lunch came for him he was unable to eat as the hospital he had come from had lost his dentures. The nurse who delivered his food did not cut the pork chop into bites so he wasn't going to eat. I cut the pieces real small and he and his wife sat there while she fed him each bite. I had wished the daughters could have seen the love light shining in that room that day.

Now is not then and we are all still doing the best we can. The daughters made incredible strides when the husband passed and so soon it was the week when they could move their mom to a living arrangement with constant care that was near to where they lived. At least two of the daughters anyway. Another one of those conflicts we face when our dear, dear parents are needing us and we have lives far away from where they are.

So another common component to this relationship I find with families is what to do with what parents keep in their homes. These are family memories, pieces of our lives as we grew up and away. Families think they might need me and sometimes they do but it was really not the case with these three beautiful, strong, capable women. In the end I had to exit the situation the best I could as they were in a kind of inner drama when I arrived. Yes, I could have taken conversations personally but it would not have served us to create conflict over emotion. The emotion is a constant in all my relationships with my clients and their families. I try very hard to keep my heart at a distance when we get to the estate disbursement. It is a multi-dimensional experience for the families and my personal feelings must not increase the drama, the effort.

I believe it is very important to know when to go. I found the situation did not need me and though words were said, there was no harm to me. I was grateful to find the place where I could walk away.

It is a real trick to understand when to walk away. This time I think I got it right. Only time will tell. Time is what it takes when it comes to working out the emotions and memories and secret anxieties that can be uncovered as we go through our elders belongings. It is a task best saved for the privacy of family, not for the elder-care techs. I will always help where I can but it is one of the places of closure that elder-care techs should respect and act upon with kindness.

So here is a little insight into the closure we must create when we elder-care techs are no longer needed. It takes a mindset. It takes a need to be good for something, just for the sake of being good for something. You have to keep a healthy respect for the process of others and be good to them the best you can as you observe the journey they invited you into, but could not foresee. Use what ever back-ups you need but be the parent for them as they learn to deal with this new, un-chartable perspective in their relationship with those people who helped them learn to walk, to speak, to laugh. Look into the eyes of the families who ask for your help and you will see your own eyes.

Yes, it is another form of love and I am honored every time I am asked to give this kind of love.

Good luck and love, N.