Groundhog Hour and the Heavy Weight of Love

Memory is a funny thing.

I’ve been doing the final edits for a memoir about an experience that devastated me. Working on it often brings tears. The further I get from that time, though, the softer my memory becomes. The pain is less sharp, and the lessons learned are hard but healing. I hope reading the story will help others see grief as a universal experience that ultimately teaches us and heals our hearts.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time with my parents these last few months. My mother’s memory is changing daily—it often feels like we’re riding a wave. One moment she is absolutely on top of the story or the situation we’re talking about, and other times she insists I must be making it up. Instead of Groundhog Day, sometimes being there can feel like groundhog hour.

My parents are in their early 90’s, so expectations for memory aren’t high. Recently, I explained to my mother at length how to operate Siri so that she could listen to books on Audible (she is hearing impaired and has macular degeneration, so reading, something she has loved all her life, has become too difficult). She watched me intently, and I was pleased with my explanation, thinking that I had solved her problem.

When I finished, I handed her the headphones and said, “Try it.” I wanted her to ask her phone to play Tom Lake, the book she had listened to in fits and starts (always when I was there to find her headphones and turn it on).

She smiled, shook her head, and said softly, “My brain is too full.”

Lately, I’ve had that feeling a lot as I juggle too many foster dogs and puppies, our most successful rental season ever, the launch of a new book, managing a nonprofit addressing a growing national crisis, and now the necessary move of my mother into skilled nursing care (and my parents out of an apartment filled with memories and mementos from their nearly 70 years together). An apartment that is three and a half hours away from my home.

Beyond that, this has been a season of unexpected challenges and heartbreaks on a personal level.

My brain is too full, and my heart is mightily strained.

I find that I am cursing more than I ever have in this life. I am sleeping much less. And my memory is failing on the daily.

I try to remember that this is a season in my life. I am blessed that my parents are still here – and for now, still know who I am, still love each other, still love me. I have too many friends whose parents are gone, and I’ve witnessed their loss, so I try very hard not to take my parents presence in my life for granted.

And yet, I can’t help but think my mother—the mother I knew and loved all my life—is already gone. Instead, there is a cheerful woman who forgets to put in her hearing aids or whether she took her meds, and doesn’t understand why she has to leave her recliner and her blue carpet and give up the independence of fixing her lunch of a yogurt, apple, and gingersnaps every day.

When I am home in Virginia, my phone sometimes rings with calls from my mother. The first time it happened, my heart jumped, as she cannot see her phone or remember how to use it, so a call from that number could only mean something had happened. When I answered, I could hear her talking with my dad.

I yelled, “Mom!” and a few moments later, she said, “Cara! I was just saying I need to call Cara.”

Apparently, Siri was listening.

Since then, I’ve been getting a call or two each day. Most times, I answer and yell her name, but rarely does she hear me. The phone is probably across the room, plugged into the charger where I left it when I was there last. I listen to whatever is happening in the room – a physical therapist taking her through exercises, arguing with my dad over a letter from the DMV that mystifies them both, or a tennis match on TV.

The interruption is both welcome and heartbreaking. It’s a comfort to know that Mom is thinking of me, even if it’s only Siri who takes any action.

Hey, thanks for reading. I know you’ve got lots of options, so thanks for sharing a few of your minutes with me.

Honored,

Cara

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