Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: dementia

  • Dear Former Me

    When I saw my primary on Monday she said I needed Zoloft or a therapist, maybe both. I had been overwhelmed with the stress of everything John has been going through, complicated mightily by the situation with Joel. For those new to YBR, Joel has been my co-author for over twenty years. He has developed dementia, and after being hospitalized in March for a medical issue, deemed unable to return to his home. He is now in a memory care facility near his son in Tennessee. On Wednesday his voice sounded raspy, and on Thursday morning a staff member swabbed his nose while we were on FaceTime with another friend. He has not answered text or a FaceTime call since.

    It is said one can handle work stress or home stress but not both at the same time.

    The story is more complex than appropriate to share in a single blog (would likely make a best-selling book), but what is important for this post is to recognize there is a distinction between pain and suffering.

    I have a lot of pain about Joel’s son not answering my email asking about his dad. It is almost incomprehensible the seeming lack of compassion the son has for those of us who have been with his dad. Several of us have been supporting him, caring for him, assisting him in meeting his stated desire to live out his life in his own home. Suffering comes when I go into resistance and blame about the choices the son is making. Suffering rides in on the shame that I participated in Joel’s current conditions by getting the paperwork in place that gave the son the legal right to make decisions for his dad. Shame also arises when I face how little compassion there has been for how difficult it is to supervise someone’s care from out of state.

    Yesterday’s news of yet another school shooting. Incomprehensible. At least 19 children and two teachers were killed yesterday when a gunman opened fire in a Texas elementary school. Incomprehensible. Many on social media speak of the heart-wrenching pain of this horrendous violence to innocent children. I was touched profoundly by one sharing that added wisdom to the mix.

    When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news my mother would say to me, “LOOK FOR THE HELPERS. YOU WILL ALWAYS FIND PEOPLE WHO ARE HELPING.” To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers, so many caring people in the world. ~ Mr. Rogers

    Yesterday I had an EMDR session with a very special colleague. I am grateful she was available to assist my finding some equanimity. I have been suffering. There was A LOT OF pain released with the emotion. As follow up to our time together, she suggested I write a letter to the former me.

    May 24, 2022

    Dear Former Me,

    I knew you would appreciate the special paper. You were such a loving creature and your heart wanted to do the right thing. You could not see all that was involved. It was not just about that time and place. It was as much about this time and place. That now and this now are one and the same, just as “you” and “I” are one and the same.

    You have done everything within your power. This is true for me, too. Fortunately for both of us, there is a higher power.

    We have neither had a childhood. It is time for us to have that chance. Children deserve to wake up in the morning and feel excited for their day. They do not thrive in the fields of constant vigilance.

    Do you remember the joy you felt in the gardens? You remembered it at the aviary at the zoo in Battle Creek. Your entire being was bliss. That is what you remember when I listen to the mockingbirds in Florida. We don’t have birds singing to us every moment but we have an experience of “ALL IS WELL” in our sweet bodies.

    I want you to do something for us. I want you to let go of your part. Let go of the feeling responsible for Joel. Let go of doing something wrong that hurt him.

    I’ll let go of my part, too.

    While neither of us carries all of the emotions, we both have carried the imprint – and the imprint has created a distortion.

    Can you see how the words on the page are now gradually going uphill? Things are looking up for us. Joel lives. I live. You live on, too. All endings are really new beginnings. May is going to be memorable for us. Our new beginning.

    I love you. Thank you. Please forgive me. I forgive you.

  • Ambiguous Gain

    My sister and I are having a wonderful experience with the Magic Eye calendar for 2020.



    We meet via a video call on the first day of each month and we turn the page together. We love the sharing: looking; not seeing; relaxing; looking again; seeing. That is how the process works!

    September was a very challenging image to see. We both had to make at least a half-dozen attempts.

    Relaxing is key.

    Our collective exhilaration when we finally see is palpable.

    My writing time with Southern Circle Poets began with someone’s post about “Ambiguous Loss” that I had re-posted on Facebook:

    Someone once said when you love someone with dementia you lose them more and more everyday: when they are diagnosed, when they go through different stages, when they go into care and when they die.

    This is called “Ambiguous Loss.”

    ‘Rapidly shrinking brain’ is how doctors described it.

    I wouldn’t wish Dementia on anyone. As the persons brain slowly dies, they change physically and eventually forget who their loved ones are. They can eventually become bedridden, unable to move and unable to eat or drink.

    There will be people who will scroll by this message because dementia has not touched them. They may not know what it’s like to have a loved one who has fought or is fighting a battle against Dementia.

    My friend, Claudia, knows this experience well, as does Katey, one of the Southern Circle Poets.

    I wrote:

      I cannot expect you to understand what it feels like to see someone struggle with tasks that once were as easy as breathing. To hear a loved-one say or ask the same comment or question over and over again.

      And to know the truth, “I cannot fix this.”

      Being present with my own inner struggles with wanting it to be fixed is the best I can do.

      I begin a poem:

      You Once Were

      You once were so skillful; and willful.
      You once were so strong.

      The writing doesn’t go anywhere from there, so I begin again…

      Ambiguous Loss

      I wonder when I first recognized you were losing precious skills we had both taken for granted. Like scales falling off the catch-of-the-day, your identity seems to be hell-bent on shedding strengths.

      Crossing the street as the afternoon sunlight was casting shadows, I saw autumn trees on the face of the glistening parking lot still damp from a brief shower. This the first time I had accepted it was me cautioning you to watch your step. Red, yellow, orange and gold…. green now sleeping soundly somewhere.

      I cannot see your world from here.

      Permission granted to enjoy the hint of fall as the breeze blows in from the window behind me, almost cool enough to cause a chill.

      Permission granted to witness the tightness moving mechanically across my chest as I wonder what your future will unfold to.

      Permission granted to be content with both the not knowing and the wanting to know and the soft, sensuous dance between seeming opposites.

      Memory drifts back to delivering my mom to the adult foster care home. Grief at leaving her there as she looks into my face calling me Debbie, and pleads, “Don’t leave me with these strangers….” and the guilt at being my relief to be leaving her there. The years of her decline, the day of her passing—edges blur as they burn a hole in my emotional body, a single heart breaking open enough to hold the whole human happening.

      Profound gratitude now for the dear ones who have walked this path previously, providing a trail of recognition along this treacherous terrain. Remembering Hansel and Gretel and their crumbs of bread being consumed by the birds….

      I make the choice to trust I am still moving toward the center of our being.

    This morning I had a near-identical conversation with two people I love. One was about the news that a job would be ending. The other was about having been at an eye doctor’s office with frighteningly lax procedures for prevention of the spread of Covid-19. Although the content of these two experiences looks dissimilar, the words that came crossed the chasm of delusion: Every experience will be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. We learn from it all.

    I said, “When you have already already felt the pain of the experience, be sure you reap the benefits.”

    Having worked at jobs which demanded so much that life balance was sacrificed isn’t failure. Noticing is gaining insight.

    When a child is burned by touching a hot stove, the child learns from the pain how to be safer.


    Now, this is “Ambiguous Gain…”

  • Overnight Visitor

    Sacred Stories

    Her mom had alcohol-related dementia. As she was approaching her transition, she would often share having been with her late husband and other loved ones during the previous night.

    One morning, a dear friend was in the reported overnight visitors. That seemed strange until later that day when her daughter received word that her mother’s friend had passed the prior day!

    These are sacred stories. Pay attention to happenings in your life. Do you have a story to share? Send email to debra@scs-matters.com.