Sometimes you just don’t want to feel you have to do something. You just want to dump the shoulds and not think about anything. You don’t want to be reminded that you have a husband in a nursing home whose birthday is tomorrow. That because of a fall he has been out of the house for one year. That you have to go and make like everything is fine. Schmear the staff, deal with details.

See the man in the bed.

Diversion comes easily in these days of Covid: new variants are the unknowns out there that manifest like the boogey-man under the bed: The boiler takes three days out of life and plays games with the heat, then the hot water. Tires on both cars have developed bubbles. There is always the nagging feeling that something has to be done just to continue down the daily road and not veer off onto the shoulder.

Let me share some comments that Robert made during the last few weeks via in-person visits and FaceTime.

You must be very bored! And he said:  Quite.

I was telling Robert about an event that occurred where I was reluctant to speak up to a friend who was driving me home in the complete opposite direction, where a straight line in reverse would have been prudent. It was a bit embarrassing and I lost my voice, my ability to speak up for fear I might insult this person. So I babbled on and said that I didn’t know what to say. And he said: Just what you are telling me now.

I love you. And he said: Thanks.

I noticed that Robert was more communicative, able to initiate, to listen, to focus and to comment. When I told him that I was so impressed, that he seemed to be more on the ball, he said, “I think the word you are looking for is cogent.”

That was Robert peeking out and verbalizing from wherever he was hiding.

I didn’t know that my request for reinstatement of speech therapy services had been listened to and that that he was receiving them again, at least until, as usual, the insurance criterion checklist comes into play and the need for the service can’t be validated.

I had a phone meeting with staff about “progress.”  They are looking into books-on-tape.

Robert never presses the red button for help, or to have the TV channel changed, or to have someone come and help him to call home. He probably cannot hold up a book. He can’t move much. All his needs must be met by the staff. How did this happen?

I found out that my physician of almost forty years, got Covid, from a patient who is a non-believer that Covid exists. As a result, the doctor got sick, family members got sick, the office was closed for a while, his affiliated nursing home had to quarantine. On and on. I needed to discuss something with the doctor and during a phone conversation I mentioned that I felt that Robert’s condition was greatly affected since he contracted Covid almost a year ago. After that, he was never the same. The doctor agreed. Covid is a culprit. Robert’s ability to communicate was severely affected. But these glimmers of who he was sometimes peek through and throw me off balance.

He speaks: There is no emotion or affect. He is like an observing Buddha, a sage. With just an intellectual observance and no perceived emotional connection.

So now I will progress into my usual tangent.

Within the last few months I asked myself how I could possibly proceed with my life in its current state, in the emotional chaos I was feeling. This was not the way I wanted to be, facing a daily abyss.

Remember, it is the season of miracles; maybe I could catch one.

I was given the opportunity to participate in a guided, intensive program, to rewire my brain. I jumped in. I had no choice but to have blind faith that something out there was waiting for me. Something that would help me alleviate my anxiety, my fears, my irrational thoughts, my narrative. I did not want to fall into the feeling that I was a victim; over the years I have tried not to. There have been many years within my lifetime that I played that game, the poor me game. There was no longer room for that. I have had years of dealing with the exhausting mindsets of hyper-vigilance, judgment, (of myself, others, and situations) the need to control, when in reality there is no control. It is an illusion we have that we could control others. There had to be a better way to make a global change and to make it stick. That’s the key, to keep the gift and apply it with abilities and strategies, with being cogent.

So, I embarked on a six-week kind of virtual boot-camp, led by a neuroscientist from Stanford University, via something as simple as an app. The program was initially meant for corporate CEOs. It has been fascinating. The problem with self-help books and programs is that they are just words that peter-out on a shelf, lacking application and accountability. This has not worked that way. I saw a difference early on by obtaining a vocabulary about what was happening in my life and how I felt. I am at the end of the program and will continue to reinforce it.

Getting back to sagacity. My mentioning of the sage, earlier. That is the key to this life-changing. By ditching the shadow beliefs learned during childhood to survive: those ingrained manipulative, defeating voices we’ve been ascribing to for decades. By quieting the chatter that drives us nuts, by looking at ourselves and others and learning how to effectively communicate and by bringing compassion into the mix.

I will never be done, I love to learn: I can finally get out of bed in the morning and face a new day. With cogency.
perhaps Robert in his state of dementia, without his emotional attachments is, indeed, a sage.

You can read about what I have been doing here.

📌The series starts here:
Part 1: And The Band Played On … a mother’s life, a daughter’s journey

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