One year ago today my mother finally got her wish and transitioned into the afterlife one month shy of her 97th birthday. It was a day of mixed emotions for me and I can’t believe it’s already been a year since she passed.
Even my weather app confirmed that it was cloudy when it was suppose to be sunny.
I remember the echoes of that early morning phone call and floating in a numb void like it just happened yesterday. I was glad to find that my favorite dog park was completely empty (which was very unusual). I scribbled a jumble of thoughts in my journal in-between staring up at the solemn, but oddly comforting, billowing gray clouds in the sky. They hugged me in their cool embrace like giant, soft pillows. On a day that was predicted to be clear and sunny, the fact that the sky was full of clouds confirmed the fact that my mother’s powerful spirit was indeed passing from this plane of existence to another.
The hummingbird that swooped down and hovered at eye-level inches from my face when I got home, blocking me and my bird-loving dog along the walkway to our front door, was at first startling but immediately comforting, too. He seemed to have a message for me and he had no plans on moving until I acknowledged it. The little messenger hovering there in front of my face and staring me in the eyes gave me the indelible feeling that my mother was being welcomed on the other side by the spirits of her loved ones. They wanted me to know that she would visit me after her transition was complete but until then she wanted me to know that she was sorry for all the pain and heartache she put me through and that she was eternally grateful for all that I had done for her over the course of her long battle with dementia and Alzheimer’s.
That little hummingbird had another message for me too. He told me that I had a unique and powerful opportunity to help other caregivers with the book I had started a year earlier about my caregiving journey. Somehow his steely gaze and seemingly weightless body evoked the presence of two favorite, long-dead uncles, along with the spirit of my grandfather who died two years before I was born. That inter-dimensional miracle probably should and will be the subject of a future post on this blog. When he finally flew away, the tears in my eyes were not from grief, but from an overwhelming feeling of joy, love and gratitude.
Although this past year has both literally and figuratively flown by, in many ways, it has also been a very long one for most, if not all of us.
But, despite the death of my mother, the sudden and unexpected deaths of two of my best friends, political divisiveness that nearly caused the collapse of our democracy, the lockdowns and social distancing necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic, I decided to use these and other challenges to find reasons for hope rather than sink into despair.
I also kept my promise to that little hummingbird a year ago today and finished my book. By far it was the hardest thing I’ve ever written. I could easily still be working on it, revising and tweaking and trying to make it perfect. But instead I took the advice of a marketing coach who thought my manuscript was already strong and I went with his idea that done is better than perfect.
This past Monday, my book about the demands and challenges of caring for a loved one suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease was released to the world and to my utter amazement, today, on the one-year anniversary of my mother’s passing, A Caregiver’s Journey is #1 in the Kindle Store on Amazon in not just one, but two categories!!! (Eldercare and Alzheimer’s Disease)
For anyone else who has lost a loved one to Alzheimer’s, or any disease for that matter, all I can say is what a difference a year can make when you live everyday aware of your focus and look towards the future with hope, rather than at the past with regret.
After a 15-year struggle living with the increasingly paranoid delusions caused by her Mixed Dementia, my mother experienced a rapid, two-year decline and suffered terribly not just from the mental, but especially the physical ravages of Alzheimer’s Disease. Her passing was both a relief and a blessing. For both her and me. I see and feel that even more clearly today than I did a year ago.
My mother was an amazing person and had an amazing life and I loved her very, very much. She was an inspiration to those around her for most of her life and I hope she can be an inspiration now, again.
I hope that by being honest about what happened to her, along with being honest about the challenges that face caregivers of loved ones with dementia and/or Alzheimer’s, it will help other caregivers know what to expect, how to prepare, how to cope and how to make the most of the time they have left with their loved ones on their caregiving journeys.
What a difference a year makes!
Peace, Joy and Gratitude.
EJM
April 29, 2021
Las Vegas, Nevada