Caring to Love

A Letter to My Younger Self

Dad and Me at a local park. He was in early-stage dementia at that time

I wrote this letter to my younger self during the hardest months of caregiving, and at the request of another Substacker who was doing a series at that time. I never published it because we got busy with moving and I was away from Substack. Tonight it feels like the right time. 💜

Dear Me,

Your life is going to take many twists and turns over the next forty or more years. Right now, you can’t even imagine your life that far ahead, and everything seems to be humming along at an even pace.

But life has a way of biting you in the butt, consistently if you aren’t careful, and you have several big bites ahead.

You aren’t really going to discover who you are for another thirty or so years.

I know you think you know all there is to know right now, but there’s more…so. much. more. Be open to the lessons life wants to teach you.

You’re going to have some trials with Mom and Dad. I think they mean well, but they’re truly not the confident parents you deserve, and consequently, you won’t be either. Know that they’re doing their best, just like you will.

In fact, if I could tell you one thing, it’s that you need to focus on being a more confident woman. That confidence as a young woman will carry you so far – you’ll be amazed. But, if it doesn’t come in your younger years, rest assured, it will come later.

Throughout your journey, you’re going to face some very hard stuff, and you’ll bungle it, but you’ll come out on top, so be patient. Your creative mind will help you find solutions to most of the problems you face, and it will also become your lifeline.

And speaking of creativity, be brave with your art. Don’t let others tell you what you should be doing. Follow your passion. Your heart.

You’ve already had some difficult times with Dad, and there are more to come, but some day, you’ll learn to love him simply by caring for him.

He’s an intelligent man, as you know, but some day, his brain will betray him, and he will come to rely on you to be his voice, his protector, his most trusted ally.

This seems like a good time to bring up forgiveness. As a young woman, forgiveness feels wrong – Mom always says that you don’t forgive the hurts, but she’s wrong. You must forgive, not carry them around like a bitter pill you’d rather suck on than swallow.

And she should be grateful that you know that, because a hefty amount of forgiveness will be necessary in your relationship with her. She will hurt you in the worst way – emotionally. In the past, the pain she inflicted was both physical and emotional. In the future, she will betray you, and you must learn to forgive that too – all of it.

Because when the time comes, these two people will ask to rely on you to be their everything. Their voice. Their memory. Their chef. Their chauffeur. Their medical encyclopedia. Their strongest protector. Their accountant.

Through the journey of life, you’ll meet with great resistance from both of them, but they’ll also both be there for you when you need them the most. In fact, except for what we’ll fondly call the big betrayal, they’ll be your lifeline.

And then, you’ll be theirs.

Mom will ask you to do something totally unexpected – help her care for Dad.

Dad will develop dementia, and it will be a journey like no other.

You already know she has no patience, so you’ll immediately understand that he needs you to be the buffer. His protector.

And you’ll do it, although at first, there will be great frustration and quite a few buttons will get pushed. But you’re a different person now – stronger, confident.

This journey of caring for Dad will help you learn to love him through caring for him. You’ll come to see the innocent he will become. Don’t worry, he’ll be so gentile, not like the man who, while wildly drunk, threatened to drive you and the boys back home – a two-hour drive, leaving Mom behind.

He won’t be like the man who lost his mind because you had no idea how to use a lawn spreader and put down a whole bag of fertilizer in about eighteen square feet of lawn.

He won’t be the man who will someday soon call you a whore, even though you did nothing wrong. That’s his anger at his own mother showing through…I encourage you to let it go.

He won’t even be the man who called you one day not long after a Thanksgiving you voluntarily spent alone because you recognized how toxic your mother was in your life – right after the betrayal.

He will beg you to speak to her again. He’ll plead. And, like always, you’ll give in.

He’ll be a pussycat who is so grateful for every little gesture, like when you bring him his coffee in the morning or fix his lunch. He’ll be so willing to go wherever you need to take him, fully trusting you to take good care of him.

And you, you’ll be so protective of him – more protective than you can imagine. Kind of like a lioness protecting her cubs. You’ll especially want and need to protect him from Mom. Her vicious tongue won’t change, even when she knows he can’t help how he is.

And you’ll lose him, so suddenly that you’ll be at a loss for words. He’ll be snatched away from you, but at the same time, you’ll know his passing is for the best. His last weeks will not be fun for you or for him, and you’ll know that he’s not tortured by his brain any longer.

You’ll come to hate the words I’m so sorry for your loss because hearing those words is like someone reached out and tore the scab off the wound on your heart, making it a wound that can’t seem to heal.

Somewhere along the line, all the disdain and negative feelings you have for him now will turn into love, simply because you cared. You cared to love.

Go forth and live your life now. Be strong. Be courageous. Face your fears instead of hiding from them. Become the woman you want to be, deep down inside. Learn to forgive, sooner than later because it will help you so much.

In the journey of caring for Mom and Dad, you will learn that empathy is trying to understand something that nobody truly understands – how it is to forget how to live.

The life you’ll eventually live as a caregiver will provide you with more personal growth than you’ll experience in all the years leading up to that time. You’ll come to understand that caregiving isn’t about providing medications at the right time or making sure they get to the doctor when they should.

It’s about caring about the little stuff, the tiniest of details that make the most difference, like showing him pictures of the beautiful grandchildren you’ll have one day or reminding him that there’s an OSU football game on TV.

It’ll be about talking to him through moments of time-shifting when he thinks you still work together.

It’ll be about understanding that he’s hallucinating and experiencing delusions and thinks you’re his mother, while at the same time telling hospital staff you’re his daughter – a good kid.

It’ll be about meeting the cable guy in his room at memory care, only to discover later that in the three weeks he’s been in the hospital, he forgot how to use the remote.

Caregiving will be so much more than you imagine, but it will also be so much more rewarding, heartbreaking, and strengthening than you can ever imagine as well.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right” ~ Henry Ford

Love,

Me