Remembering 2020 — Caregiving During Covid
A STORY IN HINDSIGHT
On Monday evening, July 20, 2020, Bryan and I were eating a late dinner in our backyard, when I got an unexpected call from my sister. She had just gotten off a concerning call with my Mom, who had told my sister that she needed her girls now … to come “take her away.”
Since 2018, vascular dementia and Alzheimers had been significantly taking away my badass Mom’s short-term memory and her ability to care for herself. At the time that we should have been considering memory care in assisted living (covered by the long-term-care policy my Mom had responsibly paid into for years), Covid-19 hit and into isolation we all went. Tens of thousands of elderly people in care homes were dying, and we heard story after story of family members who could only visit their loved ones by standing outside a closed window. This was a non-option, but my Dad’s 24x7 responsibilities as my Mom’s primary caregiver were becoming too much — although he now sees more clearly that we was the proverbial “frog in the pot” that didn’t recognize the water starting to boil.
Despite the extreme uncertainty around traveling during early lockdown, my sister and I made the decision to drop everything and go to Sacramento, the next day, to be there for our Mom and assess her needs, as well as my Dad’s. While my sister flew on multiple planes from the east coast (wearing 3 masks for safety all day), I drove 10 hours from Portland and met her at the airport (timed perfectly). We had almost no information about Covid-19 at the time, except that thousands of people were dying daily. We didn’t know how to be safe, especially after she’d been flying most of the day, so I drove with all the windows down and the sunroof open to pick her up, and then she sat in the back of my Honda CRV, with her luggage, freezing, all the way to the hotel (which we still hysterically laugh about today).
The next morning, we went to our parents’ house and my Mom came running out the door to us, asking to be taken someplace. We were shocked. She didn’t have a mask, and she didn’t remember why we were wearing them. “Shouldn’t I be going somewhere?” she repeated, again and again over the next few days. “Please take me someplace.” It was absolutely heartbreaking. She was completely isolated and needed more trained personal care than my father could provide, despite his best efforts.
My sister and I spent a lot of time, sitting socially distanced in the parking lot of the Hampton Inn, brainstorming options for how the two of us could provide short-term caregiving support, until outside support was safe — whenever that might be. Ultimately, after returning to our homes in Portland and DC, doing research and running numbers, we proposed to my Dad that we rent a small apartment in Sacramento (at his expense), and that my sister and I pay for our travel to be there, alternating one month at a time, to provide caregiving support. Thankfully, my Dad agreed.
We secured a Sacramento apartment, sight unseen, starting in September 2020. Fortunately, Bryan and I were living in a small duplex, but I had a futon bed and desk and extra kitchenware in our basement, so we loaded it into his truck, made the drive, and I set up shop in Sacramento for the first month. Two days later, Bryan drove home, as the Northern California fires of 2020 were raging. We weren’t even sure if he’d be able to get through the Lake Shasta area on I-5 — where, that very day, a dear friend’s parents lost their family home and everything in it to the fire — and another fire North of Ashland, Oregon, had shut down I-5, but it reopened just before he passed through.
On my work days, I had sessions between 9a-4p, then I went to my parents house from 4:30-10/11pm, sometimes later. On my “days off,” I was in caregiving mode from 8a-10/11pm, so my Dad could get out of the house, run errands, etc. In the evenings, I’d spend time with my Mom, while my Dad was making dinner. Then (my Mom and) I would clean up, to give my Dad a chance to go workout in their backyard workout room and just check out for a while. Then he would join us to watch a series on Netflix. When she was ready, I’d help my Mom to take a shower and get dressed for bed. Over the next weeks and months, this became progressively more difficult for her. The less my Mom was able to do for herself, understandably, the more frustrated and scared and angry she became. Again, heartbreaking … and exhausting. I would hold space with love, then go out to my car and sob before driving back to the apartment. At the end of the first month, a few days before my sister arrived to replace me for the second month, I was in an early morning automobile accident right near my parents’ home … totally my fault. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
When my sister and I weren’t caregiving in Sacramento, we were still spending hours each day researching in-home caregiving possibilities, interviewing potential caregiving organizations and caregivers, figuring out how to move or remove furniture to give my Mom a different place to sleep, reading through the long-term care policy to figure out benefits and options, getting prepared with potential options for memory care assisted living, and developing various caregiving proposals for my Dad. We had a 6-month lease for the apartment, and our goal was to have my parents set up with professional in-home support by the end of February 2021. The biggest hurdle was getting my Dad to accept it.
I am very grateful that my sister and I were able to be there for our Mom and Dad during this challenging time. To stay balanced, I really had to do my own Soulwork. Doing so supported both by my own evolution and the evolution of my work that year (which I now know is one and the same for all of us). Throughout it all, my sessions with clients were surprisingly powerful and energizing! It was in 2020 that I began to see the unique energetic themes for each moon cycle, which became a part of the next Journey Book for 2021: 1 Accept. 2 Forgive. 3 Deserve. 4 Open. 5 Detach. 6 Release. 7 Listen. 8 Relate. 9 Heal. 10 Trust. 11 Rise Up. 12 Liberate.
By the end of 2020, my Mom often didn’t recognize or was confused about who I was. While I grieved this “ambiguous loss,” it didn’t “take me out” the way it would have just a few years earlier. I now understand that I was becoming my Self in way that no longer co-dependently needed her to “recognize” me — deep healing. Today, I can see more clearly how the shadow was showing me the light.
ONE MORE SIDE NOTE: At the beginning of the 2020 lockdown, I was spending day after day working at home by myself, while Bryan worked on the front lines managing sales at The eBike Store (yes, ebikes were considered essential then). In early June, we adopted from the Oregon Human Society a 15-month old Siamese stray cat. Audri made the drives and lived with me in Sacramento during these caregiving months. The love and light and joy of this little being was one of the biggest gifts of 2020.
