The Caregiver's Strategy - The Second Part

Without humor in my tool belt, a new strategy to lift Romeo's moods has come forward. It's love. Rather, it's finding a crack in his frame of mind to insert love. It's searching for an opening where I can hold his hand, get his attention so he'll look at me, and talk about love and who he really is, what our relationship really is.

The crack where I can enter his space, his mind, is a barely perceptible instant when he lets go of his pain and sorrow. These cracks are rare, and when I find one, I must act immediately. I must slip him into his body, into his present, and love him and tell him about himself, about us. This, then, connects him to the truth and quiets and soothes him.

I spot a crack. "Romeo," I say, "I love you with my whole being." He doesn't look at me. He often doesn't look at me. "Romeo, would you please look at me?"

"I can't."

Me, gently: "Why not? Can you tell me why not?"

He begins to weep softly. "Because...because...it hurts me and I cry."

"Why does it hurt you, my love, why do you cry?"

"Because I love you so much and we've only been married a short time. We've had so little time together."

It's true. We met five years ago, in the afternoon of August 27, 2005. He asked me to marry him the next evening. And I thought to myself, "What took you so long?" Our bond is strong. To me, it feels like we've always been together -- for 5,000 years, not this mere five years of physical time.

"Oh, yes, I see, Romeo. I'm not sure if I believe in reincarnation; even so, do you know how much we have been together in past lives? A lot. They're probably trying to get us to stay away from each other more, to experience being with others throughout our lifetimes."

I have his attention, and he locks his gaze with mine, his blue eyes looking through mine, searching deeply, wanting more.

"Romeo, you are so much more."

He's lapping it up, poised to hear what else I'll say.

"Yes, you have dementia. Yes, you are confined to living in a nursing home."

The crack is still open.

"And most of you is living elsewhere."

He has a bolt of realization. The truth is here.

I nod and tell him, "Yes, yes! Most of your being, your soul, your essence, doesn't live here. It never did. Even before you had dementia, only a tiny part of your awareness was focused here."

He is still holding my gaze. I go on because there is more.

"In fact, you aren't even you. Do you know who you are, who any of us really are?"

Yes, he knows, he nods.

"You, me, all of us. We are It. We are the One. We are the Universe. We are everyone and everything. We are love."

He reaches out, wanting me to come nearer, to hug me. This is a convoluted affair, trying to embrace, with Romeo in his wheelchair.

"Can you think of that -- who you really are -- sometimes?"

"Sometimes, yes" he says, tears dripping from his eyes. These are not tears of sadness, but tears of realization, of hope, joy, comfort, peace.

"Good. Try to go with it when you can remember. When you remember, think of yourself, think of how your consciousness is free and unemcumbered by your physical body. You don't really need it during times like these. You don't need to feel separated from me, because we aren't...not really."

"Yes, I know this," he says with the conviction of one who truly knows.

I smile and ask if I can read to him. With his consent, I read one of Drew Dellinger's poems, Hymn to the Sacred Body of the Universe. Afterwards, Romeo rests in contentment, peace, bliss. Afterwards, I am exhausted and drained.

Here is Drew:

The Caregiver's Strategy - The First Part

For about two years, I took on the mission of making Romeo laugh. He was sad often. I became his personal jester. I clowned around with him, made funny faces, said unexpected things, told him silly jokes (which he usually didn't get), and got physical with him -- I'd pretend I was a roller derby queen and "shove" him out of the way; I'd tell him silly stories about passersby; at home, I'd hop onto his lap, straddling him while reciting part of the witches' cauldron scene from Shakespeare's Macbeth in the witchiest voice I could call forth:

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.
Filet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,--
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and, cauldron, bubble.

And all the while I would tickle him and mess with him -- pretending to pluck out his eyes (even though he isn't a newt), to pop a lizard's leg in my mouth, to stir the hell-broth -- even offering to make it for dinner that evening. He would laugh at all of it. Mission accomplished.

But, being the evil witch that I am, this was simply not enough for me. I had to go farther. So I performed my famous witch cackle until he cracked up, which didn't take long. My witch laugh is better than anything I've heard on the internet (yep, I promise to upload it somewhere at some point). My witch cackle pushed him over the top. He would laugh hard and push me away so he could hold his stomach in laughter. I would fall off the couch and roll around on the floor. Who knows what the neighbors thought? We didn't care.

Romeo was now out of his funk, and this lighter mood of his would stick until the next day. It was hard work in those days, keeping him happy.

These techniques don't work any longer. Romeo's moods go deeper these days. Humor no longer lifts him. What to do now?

Stay tuned for the rest of the story in The Caregiver's Strategy - The Second Part.