A humorous title that popped into my head this morning.
The everyday simple home maintenance projects and activities have definitely been subject to fits, starts and a lot of stops for a long time now.
Why so long? The cyclical demands and unexpected emergencies of caregiving are like that.
It’s a Sunday afternoon and I made headway this morning on replanting our front flower bed. Purple flowering, low spreading perennial Lithodoras backed up and intermixed with taller bright California Poppies. Our front yard planter will have a new reclaimed look. I finally had both the time and the motivational energy today to execute one of the kind of landscape projects I used to love working at.
It’s has been ages since I cleared out the last stand of perennials & annuals, leaving the soil bare of any new planting. It has been fallow looking for perhaps the past year or so.
The front yard is just one example of the home improvement projects that my wife and I started that got put on hold and never restarted. That is how it has been for us for quite some time and we have accepted it.
The last major project we began but have yet to complete was a ceramic tile floor job in our family room. Began that one in the Fall of 2009. The floor is all done. We just need to finish up the adjoining kitchen floor, walls and moulding work.
The Call to Duty Of Caregiving eventually transforms most of what you do into a well-rehearsed series of choreographed actions; much like paramedics or EMT’s. You become accustomed to dropping whatever you were doing and saddle up for that family assist, a doctor’s visit, grocery run, ER visit, etc.
Within the past 25 weeks, my wife and I said goodbye to both of our mothers who were beset by Alzheimer’s disease. That’s two out of the four that we have been caring for. This leaves the two dads, one of which we were compelled to place in a nursing home in December 2012, while the other staunchly retains his freedom and remains living within his own home.
My modest project this morning represents for me, a small beginning of reclaiming back one of the activities that I used to have time for. One of those enjoyments that had to be placed on hold and gone into the self storage locker.
Today, I visited that self storage locker. Once there, I rummaged through the many boxes labeled hobbies, likes, vacations, and home projects. Then I chose one of the smaller boxes with the handwritten lettering upon it called "Home Gardening." It was fun to open it and empty it’s contents back into my hands and mind. Oh yes, and it was fun getting all grimy with potting soil once again!
Maybe in the coming weeks, I’ll find some time to visit my self storage locker again and dust off another pastime to put into use once again.
Caregiving doesn’t mean an end to hobbies and projects you once loved and relished. It sometimes simply means they get put away someplace...like a self storage locker for a long stretch.
Jeff Dodson
April 15th 2013
