Starting in June 2007, we lost both of my wife's parents and both of mine over the course of 7 years.. My father-in-law began the difficult with a heart surgery that failed causing him to lose his breastbone among other numerous unintended side-effects which in turn caused him to live in a tortured, virtual vegetative state until he painfully passed in 2009.

Later in 2009, my father, who had suffered from debilitating emphysema for years suffered the first of two strokes. He passed under hospice care in his own bed in early 2010. His passing was a peaceful blessing.

Meanwhile my mother continued her descent in to the hell of dementia during this stretch. My father and sister (who lived at home with them) had been her primary care-giver. With him gone, the daily care for my mother fell fully on my sister and more onto me as well. It was really difficult. She'd care for my mother at night and leave for work early in the morning. We arranged for a home health worker (my mother called her "The cleaning lady") to come over every morning until noon. Then one of my brothers or I would come over and stay for a few hours with her until my sister would get home from work. Then we'd do it all over again the next day.

Meanwhile, my mother-in-law was failing physically and mentally after the passing of her husband. She had knee replacement surgery followed by foot surgery followed by a radical mastectomy. My wife was by her beside every day she was in rehab from her surgeries. When she was well enough to go home to Smith Mountain Lake, my mother-in-law needed much more care, but stubbornly refused help. So we'd visit once a week to "clean" the house.

One day in 2011, my mother fell in her kitchen about 2 hours before I got there in the afternoon. She was on the floor when I got there and was in intense pain. Initial check by EMT didn't find any obvious injury, but pain persisted and she ended up in the ER where they determined she had broken her hip. This, I know sounds harsh, was a blessing in disguise. Through this accident, we were able to get my mother, who had also stubbornly refused and was mentally incapable of understanding, into assisted living and eventually into memory care.

My mother-in-law had issue after issue until she, too, fell in her home and we found her on the floor beside her bed. This, too, was a blessing. She ended up in hospital with a broken hip and slowly withered away over the next few months before finally slipping away in a cognitive fog in 2013.

Meanwhile my mother was diagnosed with a blood disorder that demanded frequent transfusions. My sister and I would split the sessions as each one took most of a day. When she wasn't being transfused or in the hospital, we created a schedule to have some member of the family visit her every night. She gradually weakened and lost more and more of her memory and soulful essence. When she passed in July 2014, she was like a small child. Sometimes joyful. Sometimes angry. Often frightened. When she passed at the memory care unit, my sister was by her bed and I arrived a few minutes later. Strangely, on this most quiet and reverent night, a solitary robin chirped endlessly right outside her window.

I hadn't thought about those times as much as time has gone by. In the year and a half since my mother's passing, my life has calmed down. I can't even fathom how I managed to make it through those 7 years. Actually, I do know that I relied on alcohol to help me forget the present. Most days, I couldn't visit my mother without having a few beforehand and on the way home. How I managed to survive without killing myself or someone else with my car is beyond me.

Since her passing, however, I've been reborn and my thoughts have calmed. I no longer needed the alcohol crutch and gave it up completely just before she passed away. I think the strength to make that change may have been her parting gift to me.

So, I want you to know that your present is difficult. In fact, it may even get harder. But there is an end sometime and you will persevere.

[Post edited by Newt at 02/19/2016 5:07PM]