I Choose Both!

My mom doesn’t speak anymore. Her brain has hosted Alzheimer’s for too many years. Since we can’t communicate, I now read children’s books to her, as she snuggles up against me. These beautiful moments inevitably bring tears that roll gently down my cheeks because they remind me of the times she read to me, and decades later to her grandkids. They are also evidence that beginnings and endings often come in the same package.

Poignantly, the beauty of these packages is celebrated in my mom’s favorite children's book. In it a mother rocks her son to sleep at night as she sings “I’ll love you forever.” She continues this nightly ritual, even after her son becomes an adult himself, until she's physically too old and frail. But that is not the end of the story, because the son picks up the ritual, driving across town to rock his mother and sing her the song. The book ends, much like it begins, with the son, now a parent himself, singing the song while rocking his young daughter to sleep.

Is this a story of beginnings or endings? The old or the young? Parents or Children? You can likely see that each of those questions is a false dilemma, one where I've given you an incomplete list of alternatives answers to chose from. Clearly, this book is about all of them and the interconnected roles they play in the beautiful circle of life.

Humans instinctually place things in binary categories. Open or closed. Life or death. Past or future. Our brains prefer opposing ideas to circles or systems. This instinct was born out of necessity. If you're in the middle of a beautiful field of grass, do you want your brain to process every piece of grass, or do you want it to process the tiger bounding toward you?

We simply can't do everything because we are limited creatures in a limitless reality. In order to take action, we must narrow our choices, not expand them. By necessity, our biology was honed over time to make quick tradeoffs and oversimplifications. It's a good strategy, one that empowers us to make many decisions throughout the day.

But it also makes us prone to a cognitive bias called the either-or fallacy. This bias is dangerous because reality is not simple, nor does it squeeze itself neatly into binary categories. The sky, for instance, is arguably most beautiful at sunrise and sunset, when the light and the dark meet before changing places. In fact, transitions between “opposites,” like the sunset, are often a thing of richness and beauty.

I certainly did not see any richness in my mom's transition from pre- to post-Alzheimer's. I found no beauty in the times my mom told a story twice or got lost coming home from the store. I resisted everything about the transition because my mom was my hero, a steady force of encouragement, my first call for advice, and a sanctuary for my girls.

The transition was also painful for my mom who for months called me sobbing when she realized, in a moment of brutal clarity, just how much she was forgetting and how alone she felt. The woman who was always my rock was now cracking under the weight of her disease, and I found myself desperately wanting the mom from my past to come back to me. I was not ready for the mom I'd find in the future...but I would learn that this posture, pitting the past against the future, was like standing in a doorway and seeing only an exit.

A few years ago, I moved to a new house that needed painting. Like countless times before, my parents showed up to help, before I'd even asked, ready to work and armed with food. I was extremely grateful, especially because they were great painters. My mom always did the brushing, and my dad did the rolling.

By that point, Alzheimer’s had not lessened my mom’s desire to help me, but it had lessoned her abilities. Being a thoughtful kid, I gave her an "easy" job she’d done many times – paint a small section of molding. I even did the "hard" work of taping everything off ahead of time.

Boy, was I irritated to find drips everywhere when I returned, some of them dry and in need of sanding. I had a whole house to paint and didn’t need more work. That was my first reaction. The next one was outrage at that unrealistic and ungrateful reaction. Here she was on her hands and knees, with the smell of her homemade chili wafting in the air, doing everything she could to help me in spite of Alzheimer's.

With that thought, my irritation dissolved into an elemental cry of despair. Now I knew with certainty this was one of the last time I would receive help from her, a lady who had come to my rescue more times that I could remember. I was fighting with an inevitable future that was moving inexorably toward me, and I was losing the battle.

Thankfully, I was able to make a shift that day. I stopped fighting my mom's transition. I resisted the either-or categories of pre- or post-Alzheimer's. That day I saw beautiful, childlike aspects of my mom that I'd missed before, ones that Alzheimer's had accentuated. And with that shift, I transitioned to new two roles: I was now the "parent" to my mom and the matriarch of my extended family.

The shift took me a while, but I had finally learned to see beyond either-or. I savored the past, with its wonderful memories of an incredible mom, and at the same time, I embraced the moments of tomorrow, whatever they would be. I chose both, and gained for myself room to be in THE moment, to meet my mom wherever she was, and probably more importantly, to meet myself, to accept my rage, fear, and sorrow.

Each time I see her I try to say hello and goodbye. I call this my good goodbye.

Last week I signed paperwork admitting her to hospice. I was both happy and sad. Not either-or. I want her to go, and sluff off this mortal coil, and I want her to stay.

Even though our bodies instinctively perceive the world in simplified categories and either-or's, we can train our brains to process the world with more wonder and awe, and this begins with intentional practice of seeing and welcoming “opposites.”

The parent-child relationship offers us plenty of practice, at every stage. I vividly recall how I was always eager for my first daughter's "firsts." First steps, first dance, first day of college. My focus on the future eroded some of the pleasures found in THE moments with Kara. But with my fifth child, Claire, I was better able to savor past moments, anticipate future moments, while enjoying each moment.

When I'm old and fragile, I hope every one of my girls picks up a copy of the book my mom inscribed with love for each of them and then sings "I'll Love You Forever" to me. I hope I've gifted them tools for seeing the circle of life and the richness of reality, for if I have, they'll be able to welcome the tears that will inevitably fall down their cheeks.

I hope my story helps you enjoy THIS moment, in all its richness.