Dear Nadia,
How do I remain a compassionate caregiver for my 89 year old mother who never once (not once) cared for me when I was ill, or broken-hearted, or bereft? How do I continue to spend 45 hours a week making sure that she is treated with dignity and decency by a horrible, elderly-hating Medicaid system that is just waiting for her to die and decrease the surplus population? How do I not self-medicate in my usual loathsome ways when she calls me fourteen times a day, and her Medicaid care manager, ten? How do I do this while getting older myself?
Where is God in all this?
Asking for a friend. 🙏🏻
Dear Elissa,
When I was a kid – the youngest of three – I was known to shout “that’s not fair!” when my older siblings got to do something cool that I wasn’t allowed to do.
My mother’s response was always the same: “Nadia, LIFE isn’t fair”. An answer that sounds cruelly unsatisfying in a 8 year old’s ears.
But she was right. Life isn’t fair, which still makes me want to pound my raging little fists into a 1970s Formica table.
It’s true, Elissa. The imbalance of care you are carrying is, in no ways, fair.
But maybe it’s helpful to remember how unfairness cuts in more ways than one.
It is also not fair that you have the therapy hours, the tedious self-awareness, the creative life, and the long-term reciprocal love that perhaps your mother never had.
I’ve found myself thinking about you a lot over the last few days. I picture you as a girl; bereft, broken, unmothered in any satisfying sense of the word. And I keep wondering what river of circumstance and serendipity carried you all the way from there to here, from then to now, from her to you.
You asked me how do you keep giving care to an elderly mother who never once gave it to you, but I’ve been wondering how the hell you’ve ALREADY been doing it.
What unlikely waters can carry an ill-prepared girl that far?
From unmothered girl to imperfect caretaker.
Those waters, Elissa, are God’s resistless grace.
Dark and churning, calm and pitying.
A power higher.
Doing for us what could never happen if left to bootstraps and good character.
There is no fair trade between deserving and receiving to be had in this life (which feels inexcusable), but what there is instead, is so much grace.
The un-earnable, unbidden, unnoticed gifts of grace have somehow carried you here, and they will somehow carry you on.
When I was in labor with my son, I fought every growing wave of pain, my body tightened against each contraction trying foolishly to stop what cannot be stopped. Until finally I surrendered. I lay in a warm bathtub and with each contraction, I whispered to myself, “float”. I closed my eyes and surrendered, allowing my laboring body to buoy in the water until the pain subsided. Because you can’t float if you’re fighting.
So, Elissa, maybe the answer to both your questions of HOW do I do this and WHERE is God are the same: in the waters. Carrying us through girlhood and grief, resentment and redemption, Medicaid and mothering, recovery and dishes.
If it helps, please know that I too am trying to float more and fight less. And when that fails, I sometimes pound my now arthritic fists on the table. (But Formica, God bless, is nowhere in sight).
Love,
Nadia
—–
Elissa Altman
is an award winning writer. She takes on herself, her family, the creative life and (delightfully)….cooking. Her latest book, Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create is available now. You can find here her on Substack at Poor Man’s Feast
SCBH
ŽIVOT NIJE FER
Draga Nadija,
Kako da ostanem saosjećajna njegovateljica svojoj 89-godišnjoj majci koja me nikad — ni jednim jedinim gestom ili riječju — nije pazila kad sam bila bolesna, slomljenog srca ili izgubljena? Kako da i dalje trošim 45 sati sedmično pazeći da se prema njoj odnose dostojanstveno i ljudski u ovom groznom ‘Medicaid’ sistemu koji mrzi starije i samo čeka da umre, pa da „smanji višak populacije“? Kako da se ne uništavam na svoje stare, loše načine kad me zove četrnaest puta na dan, a njen ‘Medicaid’ koordinator još deset? Kako da sve to izdržim dok i sama starim?
Gdje je Bog u svemu ovome?
Pitam za prijateljicu.
Draga Eliso,
Kad sam bila mala — najmlađa od troje djece — često sam znala reći: „To nije fer!“ kad bi moja starija braća i sestre mogli nešto što meni nije bilo dozvoljeno.
Mama je uvijek imala isti odgovor: „Nadija, život nije fer.“ Odgovor koji u ušima osmogodišnje djevojčice zvuči hladno i nepravedno.
Ali bila je u pravu. Život stvarno nije fer, i to me tjera da i danas poželim da udarim tim malim pesnicama u taj isti stari kuhinjski sto od formike iz sedamdesetih.
U pravu si, Eliso. Teret brige koji nosiš na leđima nije ni najmanje pravedan.
Ali možda ti pomogne ako se sjetiš da se nepravda često ispoljava na više od jednog načina.
Nije fer ni to što ti danas imaš sate terapije, svu tu mukotrpnu samosvijest, svoj unutrašnji svijet i dugotrajnu, uzvraćenu ljubav — sve ono što tvoja majka možda nikad nije imala.
Zadnjih dana često mislim na tebe. Zamišljam te kao djevojčicu — samu, skrhanu, bez majke u pravom smislu te riječi. I stalno se pitam koja te rijeka slučajnosti i Božije milosti donijela sve od tada do sad, od nje do tebe.
Pitala si me kako da nastaviš brinuti o majci koja nikad nije brinula o tebi, a ja se pitam kako si, zaboga, sve ovo vrijeme već uspijevala?
Koje to čudesne vode mogu ponijeti jednu nespremnu djevojčicu tako daleko?
Od djevojčice bez majke do nesavršene njegovateljice.
Te vode, Eliso, to je Božija neumoljiva milost.
Ponekad mutna i uzburkana, ponekad tiha i puna sažaljenja.
Snaga veća od nas.
Koja za nas radi ono što sami nikad ne bismo mogli, ma koliko pokušavali biti „dobri“.
U ovom životu nema poštene razmjene između onoga što zaslužujemo i onoga što dobijamo (što je teško progutati), ali umjesto toga postoji more milosti.
Nezasluženi, nenametljivi, često neprimijećeni darovi milosti nekako su te doveli ovdje — i nekako će te nositi dalje.
Kad sam rađala sina, borila sam se protiv svakog talasa bola, tijelo mi se stezalo pri svakoj kontrakciji, uzalud pokušavajući da zaustavim ono što se ne može zaustaviti. Dok se na kraju nisam predala. Ležala sam u toploj kadi i pri svakoj kontrakciji šaptala sebi: „Plutaj.“ Zatvorila sam oči i prepustila se, pustila da me voda nosi dok bol ne prođe. Jer ne možeš plutati ako se boriš.
Zato, Eliso, možda je odgovor na oba tvoja pitanja — KAKO da ovo izdržiš i GDJE je Bog — isti: u tim vodama. One nas nose kroz djetinjstvo i tugu, ogorčenost i iskupljenje, ‘Medicaid’ i majčinstvo, oporavak i suđe.
Ako ti išta znači, znaj da i ja pokušavam više plutati, a manje se boriti. A kad ne uspijem — ponekad udaram svojim, sad već artritičnim pesnicama o sto. (Ali, hvala Bogu, formike više nema nigdje na vidiku.)
S ljubavlju,
Nadija
—–
Elisa Altman
je nagrađivana spisateljica. Piše o sebi, svojoj porodici, kreativnom životu i (što je najljepše)… o kuvanju. Njena najnovija knjiga Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create je sada dostupna. Možeš je pronaći na Substacku, na Poor Man’s Feast.
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