Joyful Sunday -- Finding My Joy During a Time of Grief

 

Joy and grief do not usually go together. The idea of joy however is for joy to be there no matter the circumstances. I have been trying to find my joy this year, and it has been a bit difficult the last week or so. At school, MLK week is tough. We have parent/teacher/student conferences for two and a half days. These are 15-minute online conferences with the entire group of teachers the student has. We work from 8 to 5 with a few breaks. This year was very different for me. On Thursday morning my sister texted me asking me to call her when I had a break. I did. She let me know the hospice nurse was pretty sure our father was transitioning. Now a few years ago an ER doctor told us this and we all ran to his side and got Covid from him. So, the first struggle was, do we go or do we wait. I decided I needed to go after talking to Steve. We gave Hazel the choice of going with us. So, we picked her up at boarding school and drove to Connecticut to say our final goodbyes. Now I missed an afternoon of conferences as a result. I promised Hazel we would not spend the night in Connecticut. She didn't think she could handle it. The next morning, I started conferences again. Steve asked me if I was going to and my answer was, "What else am I going to do? Sit and cry all day?" I made it through all the morning conferences and started my afternoon ones. As my first afternoon conference came to an end, I received the news that he had passed. That was the end of conferences for me.

Now my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease about 14 years ago. The shutdown of the pandemic really did a number on him and my mom. All of his care programs were closed down so all the care was falling on my mom. She hired some personal caregivers to give herself a break, but of course there was the fear of having people in close space with him. In fact, he got Covid for the first time because of one of these caregivers. When things started opening up, we had to put my father in his first facility. My mother just could not handle caring for him and none of us were close enough to really help enough. During his time in this facility, he began slipping quickly. He quickly was moved to the section where the residents needed the most care. We watched as his mind truly was becoming lost. It was during this time that we started wondering if he knew who we all were each visit. His activity, mood and mind would depend on the time of the visit. He also was really sleeping a lot. We started really saying goodbye to the man our father had been. 

As my mother's health also was not amazing, we made the decision to move them back to Connecticut so they would be close to one of us. My sister had moved back to Connecticut and wanted to take more of a role in their care. By this time our father was not always feeding himself. He more and more did not recognize us. Each visit we felt he was more and more not himself. We switched their facility again but kept them in Connecticut. The first one was not giving our father the care we expected and he needed. He was now using a wheelchair and unable to stand up and walk on his own. Most of his days were spent sleeping. Our holidays were spent in the private dining room of this facility. We learned to bring food in as we did not like the quality of the food there. We took turns feeding our father and someone was always watching over him. We had to watch for choking and how he was doing. He was just a shell of the man we love. 

As you can see, we have been saying goodbye to our dad for many years. With each stage of the disease, we have grieved. Yet, actually saying goodbye to him was hard and sad. There were many tears. The night after his death I had the best sleep I have had in years. I woke up thinking about memories of my dad when I was young. I knew he was watching over me. It brought me some joy and calm. 

While we struggled to agree on things like when and where to hold a celebration of life, I struggled to find my joy. We also got a huge snowstorm with over 20 inches of snow on our ground and then extreme cold, so it isn't really melting. We had a snow day and a remote day, so I had some time to talk with my family to do some of the things we needed to do and discuss. When not teaching or talking to family, I looked for things that bring me joy. I worked on crafts and I read. I reached out to friends and heard from others. My cousins sent us wonderful messages of their memories of our father as well. It made us realize that many people saw the special side of our dad as we did. 

Things I found have brought me joy this week include watching the birds at my feeder and in my yard, having a cup of chai, talking to a friend, cuddling with a pet, a student sending me pictures of the mouse in his chicken coop on the remote day and joking about them, and taking time to quiet my mind. I find when I focus on joy, I feel it and I hope this continues. So please know that joy can exist even when your circumstances are not great. Look for the little things that make you smile. Joy is yours to choose each day, every hour, every minute. When you choose it and focus on the good in your life, it will lift you out of the circumstances and can be so powerful.