It's Not All Bad

Really.

There are some wonderful moments. There are times I'm completely absorbed with the beauty and wonder of life. Even amid the chaos that is our lives of working full time and being sandwiched between living with and caring for a first grader and my mother in law with significant dementia, finding the silver lining is what is keeping me semi-sane. Case in point: A week or so ago, Grandma was having some hallucinations. Being tuned in to his experience (that living with someone with Alzheimer's is inexplicable and rather scary), I pulled Twig into the bathroom to discuss this new thing that Grandma brings to the table. I explained that Grandma had just had a hallucination. "Is it real? Yes, to her it is." He's so my child - I read by his facial expression and the confusion in his eyes that he can't quite grasp the concept of something that he can't touch and feel being real in anyone's world. I explained that she had hallucinated that we have a cat. A black cat that was in the kitchen sink. It sounds like the perfect pet for us, right? After all, he and I both want a cat. Why not see the good part of it? Innocent hallucinations are much better than their opposite. But I won't explain unpleasant hallucinations to him until it's absolutely necessary.

Am I grasping a straws, trying to make this, my life, work, by trying to find the goodness in anything bad? Wood is struggling to maintain his objectivity. Particularly when I focus on the good things - that I have a good job (so what if my boss is a bit inexperienced and misguided?), that I've met a lot of great women (and feel as though I have friends here). He spends time focusing on what he doesn't have instead of making what he does have great and knowing that someday in the not too distant future it will be completely different than now. It is a challenge for me to be gentle and supportive of him during the times he's having a temper tantrum and taking it out on everyone else. I don't have the luxury of getting into the kind of self-pity that holds me down for more than a small portion of the day. The pie is so big and heavy that it will spoil or fall flat on the floor exceedingly quickly - I can't afford to take my eyes off of it for a second too long. So I focus on finding the sweet topping of my reality.

A friend of mine, actually she's more of an acquaintance, told me the other day how supportive a wife I am. That she can hardly believe that we're taking care of grandma. She told me how she'd lived with her in-laws (with 11 other people) for a while and despite the cultural appropriateness of her situation, how challenging it was for her. She talked about how it pushed the limits of her marriage. How at some point along the way she had to tell her husband that he had to choose her first.

She also likened the relationship with in-laws to that of a step-parent/step-child relationship. It's true for me. I want to love her like she's my mom. But she's not. She's my husband's mom. I feel obligated to love her because she's his mom. Because she loves him the way my mom loves me. Because he loves her the way I love my mom. Because I love him; the contract that he and I entered almost 10 years ago didn't state "for better, for worse; in your sickness or health".

So I revel in the fact that grandma sleeps in on the weekends, that for all intents and purposes she really is rather easy to have with us. Sure, it's like having a baby around in that you need to anticipate every single need. But she hallucinates that we have a cat. And I really want a cat.

See, it's not all bad.