Embracing Life

As I reached and kicked and stretched along with Denise Austin, Cindy wandered in and out of the room. No longer capable of following the exercise video, her short attention span leads her to flit back and forth, now petting the cats, now fiddling with the zipper on her fleece jacket.

I caught her looking in the direction of her quilt hanging on the stairway hall. “You did a good job with that quilt!” I shouted out. She turned back to me and started saying: “Yes. I’m going to …” That’s all she could get out but, being around her now 24/7, I was able to finish. “You’re going to quilt again.” She smiled.

Of course she is not going to quilt again really, except for perhaps looking on as her friend Kim comes over to “help” her. If she cannot pay attention to an exercise video for more than a few minutes she certainly does not have the focus for quilting, even if her body could do what her mind wants. Yet Cindy’s inherent nature has not changed. The Go Go Go Gal likes having projects and is ever optimistic about being able to do them. She continues to embrace life.

In that lies our secret for how we function as caregiver and patient. People speculate and offer me encouraging words on my caregiving duties. I read everything from “make sure you take care of you” to “it’s an honor to be in the caregiving role.” The key for me lies somewhere in between those two sentiments, somewhere in between focusing on myself first and considering the focused care of someone else an honor. The key for me, as with Cindy, is to embrace life.

The assisted living duties that might bother some I just consider part of my daily routine, neither a bother nor honorable. Where others might see frustrating handicaps, I see the lovely soul of Cindy trapped in an endearing, cheerful special needs body. The one thing that gets me down is when Cindy gets down. That happens occasionally and is in one sense, a good sign that she is still self-aware. Yet we tend to help each other stay out of those moods by embracing life.

Two aspects of embracing life is optimism and, because of that optimism, a will and aptitude for problem solving. The main problem for me to solve was my role. Pieces fell into place as I gave up thoughts of earning income to focus only on caregiving. This was not easy for me, a person with no desire for retirement.

Fortunately, there is no end to my curiosity and the potential projects that could engage me, no matter the circumstance. Learning about brain health has been one of those projects and, as I just posted, learning new things is one important ingredient for that. Embracing learning seems to me to be the essence of embracing life.

My newest learning endeavor is drawing, not something I’ve ever been inclined to do because of my ineptitude, but rather because this was a former talent of Cindy’s. Just before or after dinner we sit at the dining room table. I get out the paper, drawing kit and book that teaches me how to draw Disney characters. Initially, I put a blank piece of paper and some pencils in front of Cindy, but she did not know what to do with them. The last time I put in front of her a folder of her drawings, mostly beautiful representations of animals. After looking at them for awhile she starts to say: “I’m going to … you know …”

” …. start to take up drawing again,” I say to finish her thought. That’s just Cindy embracing life. We smile at each other, the two of us embracing life in our own ways, while I put the finishing touches on Mickey.

Guess which one was Cindy’s