Hi Carolyn,
What a dilemma. Dealing with the elderly is always so fraught with abundant issues and challenges -- do we extend compassion to people who have so deeply wounded us? What is the right thing to do? If we do show compassion, how do we do so while protecting ourselves? Plus, the more tangible issues such as declining mental faculties, physical frailties, and more. It is not an easy or clear-cut time.
You have gotten great suggestions from Izzy and Hops; and you are clearly finding your own appropriate boundaries. I think especially with your last post, you are well down the pathway to deciding how to handle it. I can find info about the prolapse for you if you wish; I remember seeing a picture of it once in one of our pubs, and feeling horrified. I had no idea such things could happen to us!!
Giving up expectations of getting anything from my parents was a huge step forward in my life. It really freed me from a lot of their torture and conflict.
I think I've said that my dad and I did not have a great relationship until the last 10 years of his life. It had begun to get better in the previous years, but when my mother died he changed radically. I enjoyed those 10 years very much, got things from him I'd never received, and had many good and meaningful times with him. He could be a real challenge, in that he was needy and highly structured as ever, and elderly -- but he could also be a great joy and companion. I've always treasured the way our relationship changed and grew.
And, I fully believed I'd forgiven him, completely. But lately, this month or so, I've realized that it's more of a generous truce than real forgiveness. With him out of the picture (he died last October) I feel some old anger and resentment rising up again. It feels like anything but forgiveness.
During his last two months or so I was with him nearly constantly; he contracted a urinary tract infection (which is something that you should be on the look-out for in your mom), which is very serious in the elderly, and often can cause death. It certainly contributed to my father's.
He had always been a bright, lucid, sharp man, until he started his decline. When he was in the hospital with the UTI, he started a real mental decline, something called "sundowning." Senior citizens can be relatively normal in the morning and afternoon, but in the late afternoon they start to get the crazies -- real senility. It's the oddest phenomenon.
Thus, I went through this every day with my dad. Just when he seemed to be getting mentally alert and feeling better, the sundowning took over. When I had to put him in a nursing home for post-hospital care -- I had to, he needed the care -- he turned on me, bigtime. He got totally delirious and full of rage, accused me of trying to steal his money and plotting against him; told me things like if I looked deep down into my soul, I'd see that I was wicked and what I was doing was wrong. We'd had quite a tiff in the hospital before that; I forget what it was about, but I remember that I took no crap from him and let him have it in a very honest way. I think it scared the poor people (nurse) to death, or made her very uncomfortable. She may have thought I was an ogre, but my experience had been that the man needed someone to stand up to him; he'd been awful to the speech therapist and I wasn't going to let him off the hook. (I didn't fully realize how bad off he was.)
Well, anyway, my point is that just when you think it would be all warm and cozy and the guy would be giving me some end-of-life caring or advice or something -- boom, he turned on me. Really, really nasty. He said some things that were at least as hurtful as anything he'd ever said, and maybe more. (I swear, he put a curse on me and the pastor.)
Eventually my sister and I took him back to his house, in which he was born, to give him hospice.
I'm so glad we did. With all his past legacy there in the room, and his recent nasty behavior and words, still, I saw this fragile, frightened man. There were times, as he moved toward dying, that he had looks of absolute terror on his face; and others of great anxiety. I still think it was something about meeting his maker, and maybe reviewing his life and the things that he had done. (He was a very good man in the world, but not to me and our home.)
I hoped, because I had always hoped, my life long, that this would be the moment when he would really reach out and say something wise or profound to me -- or even say one small thing, one word of departing love or advice. What I most hoped for was that he would say some word of "I'm sorry" -- for he never apologized for anything in his life, at least to me.
But he didn't. He was completely absorbed in his own process, as I guess the dying must do. He finally seemed to wait for the end of a Yankees game my sister was watching on TV (it went extra innings) and then, although she had checked him not 30 seconds before, he died when she was out of the room.
Despite everything my dad had done to me in my life, and the nastiness of his last weeks, I am so glad we gave him hospice. It is a real, genuine privilege to usher someone out of this life and into the next. Regardless of what your earthly relationship has been, it is deeply meaningful when it is with someone who has been your immediate family member.
I will never forget the compassion I felt for him in the nursing home, even when he was raging against me; or the more subtle, but deeper compassion as he lay on his deathbed. Those feelings were as much a gift to me as they were to him.
The past few weeks, too, I have been going through a particular deep and challenging journey of faith, concerning my pastor and even my church. I am sure there is more to come, but, ironically enough, it is the N pastor himself who is helping me through this dark time. He'd given a sermon on Easter two years ago, which I didn't listen to at the time (I was ignoring him), but which I have on CD. It is without a doubt the most brilliant sermon and piece of theology I have ever heard. He talks about how God calls to us through the darkness of our lives, the confusion of our minds, to find us; how we can never know the meaning of the Resurrection until we have spent significant time in the darkness; how that is the only place that we can ever really meet the risen Christ. After the Resurrection, and after we have met the Risen Christ, life is never the same again. We only know that there is no "normal" anymore; now, we can't even count on the darkness any more.
It is so hard to explain, but he is so right. I loved that sermon when I first heard it on CD; and I listened to it so much on my commute that I can't begin to tell you how many times I've heard it. It always spoke to me; I thought I knew what darkness was. I shared this with the N, how much I loved the sermon and how much it meant to me. (I'm sure THAT was great supply!!!!)
Until this pastor experience, until he betrayed me and his office, I didn't know what darkness is. So many people on message boards (not this one) have told me this man is evil, possessed, of the devil. I cannot accept that. So, I've spent a great deal of time this week learning what my denomination thinks of those.
I learned so much. I found a definition of evil as the lack of creation and the lack of goodness, and that makes sense to me. Ns were never "created" in the way they should have been. So, with that definition perhaps I can accept that he is evil.
I learned that the difficult answers I sought were right there in the catechism of my church. Well thought out, and satisfying. Through that and my Bible study, I learned that God always brings good out of evil for those who love God. I learned that this man certainly has sinned, seriously and constantly; but so have I, just in different ways. Sins of not appreciating all the good that is around me that God created; and others. I found many Biblical references that would allow me to accuse the pastor of being wicked and take comfort that God would judge him and bestow retribution. II could take great satisfaction in that if I wished.
But, except for the first several days, I have never wished retribution on him. I just haven't. And by the grace of God, literally, I forgave him, easily and quickly and without trying, when I thought I never could.
I read again the call of Christ to his disciples, and of the truth he brought to us. I read of the need for compassion. Last night I read Matthew, and the Sermon on the Mount and the beatitudes. The very first thing Christ said was "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God." And the advice that if a man forces you to walk a mile (Christ is specifically talking about "bad" men), walk two. If he demands your cloak, give him your shirt as well.
For all their meanness and power moves and control, I cannot think of anyone more meek than a person who genuinely suffers from NPD; that lack of self underneath, that vast emptiness and darkness and disconnection from God. If anyone asks us to walk a mile with them, it is they, in their darkness and confusion and emptiness. They beg us to take them upon ourselves.
I have been so concerned about his (pastor's) soul; I know his fragility and, with my Bible study, know even more his sin (SO much more than against me); I read in our catechism, essentially, that no matter how depraved we become, if we are true believers there is always hope. And thus I pray for him.
...The very one (pastor) who has so hurt and betrayed me is the one who has also pointed me toward the path of healing; this dark experience is itself a faith journey of large and significant proportions; one that I have been asking God for, for many, many years. It is here; and it is the darkness that is bringing me into new light. A Hebrew definition for Satan is "adversary"; so perhaps the pastor is under the influence; he has been an adversary, but his opposition has forced me to study and to learn and it has brought me closer to God and Christ.
I'm not really sure what the point of my sharing this with you is, except perhaps to say that life and relationships, particularly familial relationships, are intricate and complex. The path is not always clear nor is it always easy. What God gives us, if we ask, is the power to endure the things and experiences that perplex us but the answers for which we cannot know. My very favorite Bible passage is "Trust in the Lord, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths." (Proverbs 3:5-6)
I think the best I can say is, trust both your gut and your heart. You already have all the answers you need, whatever they are; they are living and breathing inside you. And ask the Lord, and the Lord will guide you.
xoxo,
Lily
