One slides into caregiving.
It's not like sliding into home plate because the baseball player is clearly conscious of his immediate goal, giving his all to make the run.
It's more like sliding into a pair of shoes. Maybe shoes someone else gave you, comfortable when you first put them on. They look nice. You want to wear them. Even though you try to break them in and make them your own, every time they pinch a little more and eventually leave blisters. You begin to view the shoes as very uncomfortable. Now let's imagine they're stuck to your feet. You can't take them off.
That describes my caregiving experience. My physically healthy, 80-year-old parents began having mental lapses. Mom stopped cooking, so they ate lunch and dinner at the corner restaurant. Dad drove six miles-per-hour through town, sped up to 30 on the highway, and sometimes took the long way home because of confusion. Empty and partially filled pill bottles, along with spoiling leftovers and unopened mail littered the countertops.
I worked as an elementary teacher in the same town where I'd been born and raised and lived a mile from my parents, so I'd slip in to check on them on my way home from work. At first it felt comfortable to spend daily time with Mom and Dad. I knew nice daughters who lived nearby should do this. I wanted to be that kind of dutiful daughter.
For six years I stopped after work and on weekends. This became my life. It began to pinch a little more after Mom fell and broke her arm and Dad had no idea how to care for her because she'd always taken care of him. Trying to teach him to use the washer and dryer was like complex calculus. He'd never even done dishes before and left them in the sink for me.
My caregiver role, like the ill-fitting shoes, became tighter as I began driving my parents to doctor's appointments and keeping a spy's journal of odd occurrences in hopes it would help in seeking an accurate diagnosis.
During the four years to follow, Mom and Dad received a dual diagnosis of Alzheimer's, moved from their life-long home, first to a senior apartment, and after three more moves to a locked memory care facility. The caregiver shoes no longer slipped on and off, but blistered as I cleaned out and sold their house without their knowledge and mourned the loss of wonderful parents eroding away, sliver by sliver.
When we slide into the role of caregiver, we have no idea the length of time we will wear those shoes, nor do we know how uncomfortable they will become.
My parents died five years ago. Since then I'm coming back to myself. The caregiving experience built in a compassion and understanding of others wearing those uncomfortable shoes.
Yesterday I was taken back to the old familiar queasiness in the pit of my stomach, as I waited in line to pay for groceries. The 50ish woman in front of me looked frustrated and sad, but walked slowly and talked patiently as she asked both parents, one staggering with a cane and the other bent over a walker, to put down a magazine and candy bar as she tried to keep them moving through the checkout lane. In a brief glance, our eyes locked and we shared a knowing nod. I felt her exhaustion. I knew her feet were blistered.
Caregiver guilt has now faded to a more distant regret; regret that my once vibrant, productive parents died without knowing their names or mine. But, I'm slipping into my own shoes again. And maybe I'm sliding into home.