Mom & Me Five Archive

    Support groups have been on my mind recently. If you've read even a little here, you probably know that I discovered some time ago that I'm not a support group kind of gal, for a number of reasons, the chief three being:

• I was born into the unapologetic loner's life and, being, as well, socially adept, naturally friendly and deeply interested in people on both meet-and-greet and intimate levels, I have struggled all my life to find enough time alone, rather than enough time with supportive comrades;
• especially now in my caregiving phase, if I manage to find some time that I can successfully pretend is my own, the last thing I want to do is seek out any group of people, let alone a group bonded by the one experience in my life, at this time, that hinders my desire for and delight in the products of self-absorption, and;
• I am a prime example that support isn't a one-size-fits-all phenomenon. For me, the most important support is often not the most obvious. The caregiving support community tends to forget what I talked about when I was criticizing the NFCA. Formally organized support groups certainly answer an overwhelming need for many people, perhaps even a majority, but not all. I am cheese and, as we all know, the cheese not only stands alone, certain types of cheese prefer to stand alone.

    That being said, over the last week or so support groups have come to the fore, again, in my life. I decided to set up an area over at MySpace [if you're using IE, my profile and blog will appear fairly sloppy...use Firefox or Safari, instead] with the explicit intention of seeking out sites to which I can refer readers in which caregivers are writing online about eldercare experiences other than caring for those with Progressive Alzheimer's. Karma's comment on the immediately previous post also triggered an internal reexamination of why I no longer seek out support groups, despite their success for many other people in similar straits. Serendipitously, within a few hours of establishing myself at MySpace, I discovered another online caregiver journalist there, who I mention in the same post upon which Karma commented, who is writing about eldercare that doesn't revolve around negotiating Alzheimer's. We struck up a conversation and she invited me to a support group site that features an area for caregivers, regardless of the circumstances of the care recipient, Daily Strength Caregivers Support Community. I was immediately attracted by the overview definition of Caregivers, a few-holds-barred explanation of the circumstances to which this term currently applies. I decided to join, look around and see if I'd feel confident recommending it to others who are seeking online support. It's been interesting because the concept and the driving atmosphere of the area are completely out of character for me, but, I figured, I enjoy out of character experience and could certainly use the practice of writing with restrictions. As it turns out, I feel confident in recommending the support group with a few caveats: Daily Strength's Terms of Use contract (I'm one of those Policy Geeks who always reads the Privacy and Terms of Use/Service statements when I join a site) explicitly states that rights to all member content will be wholly owned by Daily Strength, which covers copyright of member material, including "ideas". This is a deal stretcher for me, as I admit in the first and only post in "my" (obviously, according to the terms of membership contract, it's not "my") fledging Daily Strength journal. It encourages me to self-impose severe restrictions on what I write there. The site is also touchy-feely: There's a "Hug" area, which includes informal ratings of how many hugs a member has given and received. My innate touchy-feely instincts are fundamentally different than those at the site, but I'm comfortable with the site's instincts, as well, and realize that being a member of the community requires the ability to enter into the specific camaraderie defined by the site, so, as long as I'm there on a regular basis I'm game. The site, as well, has a strong undercurrent of Abrahamic god centered/hugs-and-bears-and-bright-thoughts spirituality. Communicating through this filter, though, is not an implicit requirement and certainly not universally observed. If you're looking for identification with the more dour moments of the caregiving experience, it's not hard to find there.
    It was with these overriding thoughts that I began what became an unexpectedly active weekend for both Mom and me. Saturday, around noon, a trio of related men looking for landscaping work and noticing the sorry state of our property stopped by to sell themselves. This is common in our neighborhood. After discussing terms (one being my desire and intention to work alongside them as my mother-care duties permit, since I have a strong, hands-on affection for our yard) and leading them on an extended tour of our property, explaining how little, as well as how much, grooming my mother and I prefer, I hired them. They began work that afternoon and worked through Sunday with an agreement to return next weekend, beginning Friday. I am overjoyed to announce that I seem to have not only successfully filled the gap created by Mr. Everything's move to Winslow, these guys get it even better than Mr. Everything did. They have startlingly appropriate ideas on my "wild and domesticated" theme. It didn't take them long to accept and enjoy that I love being out there working along side them. They are, as well, a trio of family oriented men (two brothers and the son of one brother/nephew of the other), so they were enthusiastic about Mom's desire, yesterday, to spend time in the backyard, watching the process of shaping it into an area benevolent to her desire to spend time there. The four of us energetically cursed through the process of opening our intransigently baffling yard umbrella for her, they enthusiastically embraced her pleasure in watching the activity and even helped me find small chores for her to perform while she sat on her walker and watched the transformation.
    Because Mom has been so inactive, lately, she tired quickly, but stubbornly refused to acknowledge this, so I let her rip for as long as she could. Finally, she decided she needed lunch. Once inside and fed, she opted for the nap she'd been struggling to forgo. It was a short one, though, and the only thing that prevented her from heading out a second time was that she was a little shaky after all the walkering involved in the earlier session.
    As our yard work session came to an end a significant rainstorm settled over our area. The men and I agreed this was a sign that what we'd done that day, including resetting some bulbs I'd planted last fall that aren't doing well (I got kidded, a lot about my black thumb), planting lots more and domesticating our wild onion patch, "was good."
    Later, Mom not only acknowledged her difficulties with her outdoor session, she independently proposed a solution, "I'll just have to get out there more often."
    I assured her that, even though these guys are only available on weekends, their promising start has allowed for lots of little projects that she and I can pursue outside on weekdays.
    This was not the end of yesterday's exhilarating business. We have two cars, one of which is a 1992 Toyota Corolla sedan which has been sitting idle with a dead battery for almost a year. I've continually put off replacing the battery because the car sits so low that it is almost impossible for my mother to negotiate; thus, we don't use the car much and I almost never think about it. I've come to ignore its presence in our carport. The man with the son has been looking for a good used car for his wife. During the course of the afternoon he asked about its obviously retired state (it's covered by a curtain of dust) and expressed an interest in buying it. In response, my mother's sharp trader instincts kicked in. I did some quick research on Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds (Edmunds, by the way, was far more helpful than Kelley to our purposes), Mom and I came up with an acceptable price and the only thing left was for the interested party to bring his wife over in the evening to take a look at the car and bring one of those handy-dandy battery starters to see if it was only the battery that was the problem. Around 1900 not only did the man and his wife arrive, so did the kids. Buying a car was a much anticipated family enterprise. Everyone had a merry session in our carport. The car started with one hitch, which was due to misplacement of the leads and was quickly corrected. My mother came out on the stoop for introductions but quickly, with regret, retired into the house. It was too cool outside for her and she didn't want to wear a coat while the rest of us were in shirtsleeves. She was celebrated, though, by everyone. As the man and his wife discussed the deal while letting the car run for a good 20 minutes to get an idea of operating temperature, the kids piled into the car with me. We checked out the features, I set the clock, and, as often happens with kids, I was peppered with questions about Mom and me.
    "How old is she?" the youngest asked.
    I told them she will be 90 this August.
    "Ooohhhh..." was the chorus.
    They wanted to know details about her condition, her life and why she no longer drives; was I married; how we supported ourselves; whether my earrings were heavy; the list was endless. The more spectacular answers, especially regarding Mom's life and my marital status, elicited "Ooohhhh..." after "Ooohhh...".
    Once everyone was satisfied, the deal was closed with a handshake between the husband and me and a hug from the wife.
    I told Mom, "We should have set up your walker outside, Mom, and you should have accepted wearing a coat. The kids were fascinated with you and asked me all kinds of questions about you and me." I delineated the list of questions, answers and responses.
    She was delighted. She laughed several times at their awed reactions to her age, my marital status and her driving experiences that put the dents in the car and finally prodded me to take over all driving. For the rest of the evening we rehashed various aspects of the day.
    As we were preparing her for bed I said, "You know, Mom, I'm really looking forward to us getting out in the yard, more, watching the transformation that'll be taking place, especially knowing that we now have exactly the right companions in yard care, maintenance and appreciation."
    She grinned and nodded. "I was just thinking the same thing."
    After Mom retired, as I was considering the day and the change in both our moods it had triggered, I realized, this weekend was exactly the kind of "support group" that is appropriate for me, and, apparently, Mom, as well. It didn't involve a narrow focus on the day-to-day caregiver routine and its detail, joys and frustrations. It, rather, involved a multifaceted focus on life, on living it, and those details, joys and frustrations. It involved several people pursuing their own purposes and mindsets while interacting with others doing the same. I recalled a moment, late in the afternoon, while Mom and I were breaking up large, dry branches for next winter's kindling and planning the reconstruction of the quail/squirrel den that our kindling pile has become, while we were listening to the growl of the chainsaw cutting down dead trees in our wild area and watching two of our crew scattering our home-made compost and mulch over the yard and manicuring it into an invitation to spend time outside, when I thought, "Men, chainsaws, yard work and Mom in the middle, that's my kind of support group."
    The issue of support groups is impossible to avoid when one is a companion and caregiver to an Ancient One. Everywhere one goes, everyone one meets, at one point or another, finds a chance to recommend specialized support groups to the caregiver, especially if the caregiver in question is venting or complaining in "mixed company". Observation tells me a couple of things about this issue:

• I think lay people (people, that is, who are not directly involved in eldercare) suggest support groups so vociferously because they feel helpless to respond to the experiences of the eldercare giver.
• I cannot deny the testimony that caregiver support groups are valuable for many people, and I wish all those people well.
• I must reassert, though, especially in light of my experience this weekend, that the above mentioned support groups are not appropriate for all caregivers. I'm one for whom they are wildly inappropriate.
• Some of us find our best support in the serendipity of unspecialized life, unspecialized community and, as well, the support implicit in alone time within which we can contemplate our situations with no other resource than our thoughts.

    Here's a rarely considered way in which our communities at large can support all caregivers:

    Before you spout to caregivers the value of standard-style support groups, listen to the caregiver in question. Remember that we are all, caregiver or not, unique, and, involved in living. While many find support in standard caregiver support groups, some of us do not, and, anyway, by the time you're talking to us, we probably all know about their existence. We're talking to you because we're not interested in talking only to our colleagues, at the moment. A few of us even find caregiver support groups more onerous than the activity of giving care.
    Listen as closely to the caregiver with whom you're conversing as you would to anyone else. You will hear broad hints that will clue you into the eccentric needs of your conversational companion. Heed them...and think, twice, before you offer standard solutions. In casual conversation at a store, while working along side someone pursuing a task that appears to have nothing to do with caregiving, while gossiping on the phone with an acquaintance, you might be providing exactly the "support group" a caregiver needs. Don't alienate the recipient by jumping in to direct them elsewhere. Stay with the pursuit of life alongside your community in all its variety. This, I think, for some of us, maybe for all of us, whether or not we find intrinsic value in formally organized caregiver support groups, is the most important support activity of all.

    As I'm wrapping up this post I'm watching a roadrunner cautiously negotiating our front yard in stunted darts, a lizard in its mouth. Amazing! I didn't know roadrunners lived this far up! I've never seen one here! Hmmm...something "good" obviously happened this weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing what other kinds of "support" show up, here, next!