SOME CIRCLES THAT
WILL NOT BE UNBROKEN
A Widow Bit – April 6, 2008

By Mary Koch

             Friday I got soaked while trying to find the umbrella I stash in the trunk of my car for visits west of the mountains. Heading to the hospital, I joined the early morning freeway commuters whose wakes muddied my windshield as they zipped past, at least 10 mph over the speed limit.

            It’s been 30 years since I was one of those impatient, stressed commuters. Suddenly I felt as if I’d come full circle. Whether or not I wanted to be, I was back in familiar territory – in the city of my teens and 20s. Back, too, in the land of health care.

            To come full circle is to return to your starting place after a journey. With luck, you’ve learned something along the way. It’s different from going in circles, which is more about futilely spinning round and round, getting nowhere.

            I realized I’d come full circle as I sat with others at my mother’s bedside during her 10-day hospitalization after she fell and broke her neck. I’d been at bedside with my husband countless days and anxious nights. Because of those experiences, I had less apprehension about medical processes and bureaucracy. I could recognize and appreciate the many instances of professional skill and sincere care.

            But there were times I found myself going in circles, gaining no ground as I fumed over delays, lost records, arbitrary rules and nurses who had either little time or no inclination to listen.

            By that Friday afternoon the rain had tapered to a chilly, Puget Sound mist, and I was walking large circles around a parking lot, working off frustration and anger. Mom had been moved to a skilled nursing care facility, and the last straw was a clumsy transfer from wheelchair to bed. What rankled was that I knew I could have done a better job, or at least less awful, but I was not allowed to help. Rules, you know.

            “I should just scoop her up and take her home,” I muttered as I circled the parking lot. “I can take better care of her myself.”

            “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” The rage had finally quieted enough to let my heart speak. I’m not the only one who has a claim on this fragile 91-year-old. Transporting Mother 250 miles from her home, friends and most of her family might make me think that I had control of the situation, but that would be an illusion. And it would not meet her needs.

            Often a nursing home is the right answer, but it is not an easy one.

            I’ve been reading aloud to Mother the small book, “Beyond the Mirror,” by Henri J.M. Nouwen. He observes that life “is a series of little deaths in which we are asked to release many forms of clinging and to move increasingly from needing others to living for them.”

            Children cling. Wise parents—as mine were—know to let go. Roles reverse, and now I have come another full circle.

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