Whoa, the Weather is a Roller Coaster!

Posted 2/5/25 (I love the symmetry of the date…02052025)

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“Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord.” -Jeremiah 8:7

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Whoa the weather is busy these days in the Ozarks. Here is a chart of the last few weeks:

(LINK of picture source)

If you squint just right, you can follow the yellow line of temps. This week we had a huge hill as we ventured to nearly 80 degrees! A snowstorm is coming soon. Welcome to the Ozarks.

Just a little thought for you: This chart is life as a caregiver. Temps change. Wind changes. A lot. A lot more than the weather. Oh, sure, there are seasons where the unchanging is maddening, but over time expect change. I was thinking about this week’s weather here. During the two nearly 80 degree days what was my response? Here are the options:

A. Celebrate by soaking up the Vitamin D sunshine with reckless abandon.

B. Stay inside expecting the nice days would last forever anyway

C. Dip my toe outside and say “Ahh, that is nice”, but then start immediately dreading the weather change that we know is coming.

In the weather I am probably a B. I miss opportunities far too often because of the routine of life. In caregiving, however, in full transparency I was much more C than I wish I was. See, friend, there will be some good days, especially early-stage and mid-stage, that we can easily take for granted. We need to bank the joy when and where we can get it. Like an ant ventures out when it is warm and gathers food, we need to gather joy when the times are good. One caveat, though, is we must get real with our expectations. Our loved one isn’t the same as he/she was before. Adjust our heart thermostat accordingly. However, looking back, there were so many opportunities that I missed because I was so worried about the futility of wrong expectations.

For fun, I asked ChatGPT for advice on how to find joy and bank it when times may get worse as a caregiver and this is what it spit out:

Finding Joy in the Hard Times

• Savor the Small Moments – A shared smile, a warm hug, or a laugh over something unexpected can be priceless.
• Engage Their Senses – Play their favorite music, let them feel soft fabrics, smell fresh flowers, or enjoy a familiar taste.
• Look at Old Photos Together – Even if they don’t remember, it can spark joy in the moment.
• Sing or Hum with Them – Music can reach them in ways words sometimes cannot.
• Go Outside – Fresh air and a short walk (or sitting in the sun) can lift both your spirits.
• Find Humor Where You Can – Sometimes, laughter is the best way to cope with difficult moments.
• Celebrate Their Strengths – Focus on what they can do rather than what they’ve lost.
• Accept Help & Take Breaks – Your well-being matters too; seek support so you can bring your best self to them.

Not bad advice for any situation. However, knowing how to find joy, and seeking it like a precious jewel are two different things. Trust me, I get it. Don’t feel guilty thinking I had it together better than you. Not at all. I learned as I went. However, there is a good chance if you are reading this that you still have time to do much better than I did with my 20/20 hindsight.

Make it happen. When they are doing better than you expected, rejoice about it at face value! If you catch yourself saying “Yah, BUT…” then reply with a louder “Yah, but ….this is awesome! I will worry about the ascension later.” Is it cognitive dissonance/denial? Perhaps, but it will make you happier now and later than the alternative.

Here is a small example of one day that I “got it” better than others in late 2019. I text in advance to my hospice worker to see how mom was doing before I arrived. This is one of the many super cool things about hospice….they are an extra set of eyes. They told me she was having a rough day. When I arrived I steeled myself to make her day better somehow. Maybe I would get her in front of the piano? Maybe we would color together or listed to my Alan Jackson Hymns tracks. I was going to turn the day for her around! When I got there, she was clearly upset and pretty mad. She had her sweater on wrong. She was in Tarzan mode and had her head and one arm out the neck hole. But she wasn’t laughing. There wasn’t a speck of joy to be had. The normal me would have took it for what it was and focused on fixing the problem, assuming that a fix was what she needed. This time, I am not sure exactly why, but I made eye contact, chuckled and said “Dang, Mom. they don’t make these things like they used to! Stinkin’ sweater!” . All be darned if she didn’t chuckle too and grunt a few times as I helped her get situated. The next 30 minutes was much better than if I would have just fixed it. I accidentally empathized and joined her in the frustration and shifted the blame elsewhere so she could save face. Even a blind pig roots up a truffle now and then. 🙂 She had such a great sense of humor and I subconsciously normally ignored that.

A couple things I should mention here:

• Write down what “works” and try it again until it doesn’t “work”. I can’t remember ever laughing with her again in a very hard time like that, but I should have used it again.
• Give yourself grace. Laughing with someone can feel like laughing AT someone. That was easy for me to miss.
• We have to find joy in the journey somehow and not wait for everything to be ok for that. I would normally have spent 10 minutes trying to fix her clothes/her problem/her anger so that we could exhale a few times and just somehow automatically be happy. We miss out if we don’t go outside when it is cooler the next day after it is 80, when, in the Ozarks, it is probably 30. There is just a different set of things to find good in when it is cold.
• Don’t feel like you “aren’t doin’ it right” if life isn’t a big laugh-a-thon or if something you hoped would work fell flat. This disease seems like it hates joy and pushes back against it….and does it well.
• Cruddy weather, and cruddy times are relative. Drop from 70 to 40 degrees like this week has seen and we feel like it is 0 degrees outside and we shiver. A better example: Go from 40 to negative 10 and we shiver. Go from -10 to 40 and we wear shorts out to get the mail. Tough love alert: we can sometimes have short memories. I NEVER want to minimize how cruddy this disease is, in any sense, but remember…things can and may very well get worse. That fact NEEDS to compel us to live for today in caregiving and do our very best to love them like they are and find joy where we can. Waiting for things to improve to try to enjoy life with them won’t work. Matthew 6:34 reminds us “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

I hope my little sermonette hit right today. Maybe I am still just struggling with the what-ifs in many years of caregiving, I don’t know…but I don’t think so. I have presented several times on the topic “10 Things I Wish I Would Have Known” in dementia caregiving, and the more I think of it, the more this rings with me.

What think you?

#EndALZ

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Longest Day Fundraiser prep: I am dieting and exercising like nobody’s business now. I walked a bit too far Saturday and am gimpy, but I hope to hop back on the wagon exercise-wise tonight. 🙂 It is a job for sure when you let yourself go a bit. 🙂 Stay tuned for more updates. 🙂

Oh, and here is a cute pic of our first grandbaby Little G. 🙂 Blink an eye and she will be driving.