And yet more...
By M on Thursday 16 November 2006, 14:17 - Journal - Permalink
Today's post is very much a response to Redcedar's perceptive comment on
yesterday's post. In particular the closing sentence:
On the other hand, I've inherited an attitude from Asian friends that takes this preoccupation with death (what is that term?) and turns it into a tool for the appreciation of every living moment. In Japan this is said to be epitomised by the regard for cherry blossom - so delicate and transient, beautiful and yet doomed. The blossom is a symbol for everything that passes - everything there is, in fact. People look at the vulnerable and short-lived and sigh. The sadness is treasured for the depth it adds to experience, rather than treated as something to be scuttled out of sight.It motivates one to get started now, make use of the day before you, carpe diem. It makes you value life.
This is where mum and dad seem (to me) to be doing something, not wrong exactly, but inopportune perhaps. Instead of sitting across a gloomy room from each other in a stupor, which is what they do when they are on their own, I'd like to see them pottering around in the garden, watching the birds and insects, observing the budding of the plants, just rejoicing in the tiny moments of life now that, unlike the rest of us, they have the luxury of time to do this. I'd like to see them in touch with the richness of being.
But of course, they can do what they want to do, even if it is just sitting around, waiting. Who am I to impose a rule that they should use their remaining time in any particular way? It all boils down to which value system one subscribes to, and mum and dad are increasingly disengaging from this kind of encumbrance. I suppose in deep dementia it all becomes meaningless anyway.
I can only speak for myself, but in doing so I recognise that there are two quite contradictory sides to my view. First, as I said yesterday, it seems a blessing that mum and dad don't even contemplate death because this means that the don't worry about it. What are the dimensions of this? It means they don't worry about their own, or each other's; it means they don't add a preoccupation with death (there is a poetic term for this that I wish I could remember) to all their other preoccupations. It means that, as Redcedar points out, they concern themselves with little problems that can usually be fixed. It means that while they need help with so many things, this is one thing that they don't need help with. I'm grateful for that, all right! So the benefits of their death-blindness are communal, so to speak.Why do we not think of this dementia/oblivion as a state devoutly to be wished?
On the other hand, I've inherited an attitude from Asian friends that takes this preoccupation with death (what is that term?) and turns it into a tool for the appreciation of every living moment. In Japan this is said to be epitomised by the regard for cherry blossom - so delicate and transient, beautiful and yet doomed. The blossom is a symbol for everything that passes - everything there is, in fact. People look at the vulnerable and short-lived and sigh. The sadness is treasured for the depth it adds to experience, rather than treated as something to be scuttled out of sight.It motivates one to get started now, make use of the day before you, carpe diem. It makes you value life.
This is where mum and dad seem (to me) to be doing something, not wrong exactly, but inopportune perhaps. Instead of sitting across a gloomy room from each other in a stupor, which is what they do when they are on their own, I'd like to see them pottering around in the garden, watching the birds and insects, observing the budding of the plants, just rejoicing in the tiny moments of life now that, unlike the rest of us, they have the luxury of time to do this. I'd like to see them in touch with the richness of being.
But of course, they can do what they want to do, even if it is just sitting around, waiting. Who am I to impose a rule that they should use their remaining time in any particular way? It all boils down to which value system one subscribes to, and mum and dad are increasingly disengaging from this kind of encumbrance. I suppose in deep dementia it all becomes meaningless anyway.
Comments
Hmmm...I'm not sure that anything is any more or less meaningless regardless of whether it's perceived through dementia. My mother's dementia, although not nearly as severe as your mother's (perhaps it's more like your father's) has taught me that she is less likely to think of what she wants to do on her own, or waaay over estimate what she can do or how she can do it. At any rate, she certainly does more when she's presented with more...and does less when she's presented with less. It's not uncommon for her to refuse my suggestions, but it's also not uncommon for her to go along with them, or to allow me to force her into something.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, perhaps dementia wipes out the primacy of wanting in favor of what is presented. Maybe self-contained wanting, desire, is a luxury of those of us who consider ourselves undemented.