Let Her Grow Old: An ode to Diane's essence

Three and a half years ago our mom Diane (Diane Laurene Kelsey McColley) left this earthly sphere in the deep midwinter verging on a verdant spring. The staying power of her gentle essence is strong, and I can feel her with me, especially when a bird or dragonfly alights nearby. I know you know this feeling for someone too. Her brilliance and love for beauty can be captured through a wealth of writings: exquisite poems devoted to the natural world and her abundant, scholarly work on John Milton and other 17th-century poets. Mom wanted to be remembered in writing and made sure that her books and poems were distributed to family members before reaching her later years. She had a particular love for the works of Saint Hildegard of Bingen, and all that is green.

If I am slow on the pick-up in reading her scholarly writings, it is because it will bring up a yearning to talk with her: about her ideas, about the language itself, why she chose this word in particular. I would want to further mine her environmentalist's understanding of poetry's purpose. NB: I wrote this line a year ago, and today have changed my mind and am ready to go. She would be delighted if I read her work more, sending my thoughts through that mysterious space we still share.

Today, I am writing for her.

Since late in mom's life, I have been pondering the way we talk-- about the elderly and, in particular, those with signs of confusion, memory loss, aphasia, and other aspects of what we now call "dementia." These loved ones whom we too often talk about as if they are no longer here even though they are still awake and alive with light and love and may be in the next room. We talk behind their backs about their being gone to us, even though they are the ones living with the challenges of navigating neurological changes. I want to cast some healing light on these moments and move away from them toward something that grows more greenly, and breathes more oxygen into these moments.

The elderly in neurologically diverse stages deserve consistency in the love we show them and in our attentions, our touch, our immediacy of focus on them, and the support they need to help ease their often frightening and frustrating  transition. Yet we Other them, measuring who they are to us more than who we are, and can be, to them. Yes there is caregiver's exhaustion we more than need to care for in return. Yes there are whackadoodle moments we need to carry through with compassion and hopefully some belly laughter together. Yes it is hard and frustrating at times and often, especially when their anger is directed at us. But not compared to their dying process. We can handle the discomfort without othering and distancing.

Mom/Diane's "gentle essence," is something everyone could feel in her presence, even as the condition of her illness changed her energy and ease with processing information or communicating through words. It was lovely and it was enough, even when we craved more for just a minute. I did not need her to be who she once was but to be comfortable with where she was in her process. I could still feel a deep, loving, warm, and soft connection to and from her, even when non-lingual, and we were always able to communicate so much to one another through the holding of hands. This was a rarified, warm, human connection, the most peaceful and loving connection between a mother and daughter. And it allowed her to rest.

Yet I often regret my communications with mom when she was beginning to have short term memory loss. I was snippy and felt the need to tell her she had already said this, or that, a few minutes ago, which must have really increased her own anxiety. And now when I read through social media devoted to those caring for the elderly, there is so much venting about "who my parent or partner used to be to me" and "how difficult it is to be with them." Where does it all go, and what does it grow?

When we celebrated mom's life at the Church of the Incarnation, in Santa Rosa, California, the greeter for our family took my hands and transmitted a softness so reminiscent of my mom's. She had a genuine empathy for us completely fresh and un-canned. The celebrant, Father James Knutsen, tapped into our mom through beautiful language and energy in such a way that I felt her there with us and saw her light within everyone present. This is how mom wants to be remembered. This is how we bring her back to life. This is the woman I imagine holding hands with in such a way that I can still feel her love pulsating through her skin into my bloodstream.

Let's let our loved ones and ourselves grow old with less judgment, fewer demands, and more visceral love. Let's let them grow old. Let's help them grow old.