It ain't over till the fat lady sings! There's still a whole 24 hours to get "The Griffin Cryer" free for your kindle - although I'm fully expecting any moment to be shuffled from the top spot by the new kids on the block! One of those is our good friend Dody's moving yet inspiring memoir of caring for her beloved mom: "Adventures In Mothersitting".
Dody (Doreen Cox) is a tireless supporter of her indie friends, so I'll be there in my cheerleader's outfit, turning cartwheels on the sidelines along with many of her friends and supporters – not that we'll be needed.
"Adventures in Mothersitting" has been hailed as "a must read for family members, care givers, health professionals, nurses, retirement community and hospice staff who work with dementia or other related mental health conditions." (From just one of the fourteen five star customer reviews).
"Adventures in Mothersitting" will be free to download from tomorrow, and is highly recommended heartwarming read, to discover more about Dody, and her magical short stories, poems and photography, visit her site "Treasured Encounters" or you can read Dody's earlier interview with me here.
For a daughter, at age 61, being called “mommy” by her own mother was a heart-wrenching experience. This happened to the author during the course of a three-year adventure as the at-home caregiver to her mother, much loved yet caught up in a downward spiral of physical, mental and developmentally regressed disabilities.
Adventures in Mother-Sitting is not just a chronicle about the dementia-induced antics of an independent, spirited mother as she approaches the time of her death. The book is also about a daughter’s journey through an emotional roller coaster-passage of grief intermixed with surprising sweet instances of joyful connections with not only her child-like mother but, also, the core of her Self. Throughout the book, the author portrays the ways in which the physical and mental needs of an old-age mother and the emotional, spiritual needs of a caregiver daughter lovingly served each other and how the dementia served them both.
Each day is an adventure because when dementia is present, the typical actions involved with daily care habits become unpredictable. The experience is also termed an adventure because of the surprising twists and turns of emotion that arose in the author, compelling her to recognize and face deep-seated fears and unwanted emotional reactions whenever her performance was not in accord with the spiritual vision that she had of herself. Moments of comic relief would save the author from the depths of grief’s despair during not only pill-taking and messy hygienic episodes but, also, during her mother’s recurring stumbles and falls and during those night-time personality changes that occur due to sun downing events that are a common aspect of dementia.
Adventures in Mother-Sitting is a story that reveals a mother’s final gifts of spirit to a daughter who had yearned for and sought after ever-deepening experiences of faith, trust, humility, and the peace that passes all of her understanding. The mantra that kept her going, reverberating in the back of the author’s mind, was an echo of her mother’s life-long response to any calamitous event. Her mother had always told her girls, “You do what you have to do. God gives you the strength. That’s how I was able to raise you four little girls after your daddy died.”
Regressed in her mind to comprehending the world through a child’s point of view, the mother’s last few years of life were full of happy, joyful moments despite the downward spiral of her physical body’s health. This mother’s expressions of spontaneous joy became the balm that soothed the author’s own tired, sad, and despairing spirit. “How can I stay sad in the presence of my mother’s joy?” the author wrote in her journal one night. Adventures in Mother-Sitting depicts not only the role changes that occur in the relationship between a caregiver daughter and her beloved mother but also, the more compassionate relationship that the daughter gains with herself as she learns to walk more honestly and gently with her fears, worries, and shortcomings.
Download for free from Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.de