Compassion capacity

It has seemed throughout this long, five-month ordeal of my mother’s illness and caring for my father that my physical limits (just plain tiredness) limited my capacity for compassion as well. I’d find myself getting impatient, even angry, with Dad when his slowness, due to the Parkinsons, kept us from spending time with Mom. My daily prayer was for an extra dose of patience and compassion.

Now that Mom has passed, my patience and compassion for Dad are back to adequate levels. I can give him extra time for naps, bathing, eating, and other activities without feeling torn apart by the need to spend time with Mom. Dad is so vulnerable right now, having lost his wife of 61 years, his caregiver, the one he trusted to take care of his banking and bill paying (though Mom was barely capable of doing that before her illness). His dementia may protect him, in a sense, from the devastation of the loss, but I can already see physical signs of stress.

As we gathered around Mom’s bed on Friday evening, just after we watched her last breath, Dad turned to me and asked, “What’s my first name?”

Sue