Laundry

For two and a half years I've been doing Mother's laundry.  As my husband keeps reminding me, Mother pays for that to be done.  But in washing her laundry, I've felt like I was helping to take care of her.  Her clothes have also lasted longer and been nicer since I don't use such harsh detergents to wash  and super high heat to dry her clothes.  I've been doing 3 to 5 loads of her wash a week.  Most of the time these were small loads, but because of her incontinence, there are often several outfits a day.

While I was gone the home did her laundry, and I've decided to continue to let them do this.  Here is the strange part.  I feel such freedom in letting someone else do this chore.  I thought it might make me feel guilty because Mother often thanked me for doing her laundry, but this is not the case.  No guilt.  I feel like I can time my visits around my schedule rather than around the laundry.  What freedom to no longer be a washing drudge.

It seems silly, but this small change has made a difference in my approach to Mother.  This small change has made me acknowledge the bigger changes in Mother.  I am no longer trying to hold off the inevitable decline into complete loss.  Doing the laundry was a symbolic act on my part, as if I could keep Mother from slipping away behind piles of laundry and detergent. I can now say that instead of trying to keep some normalcy for Mother, I can accept her limited life.  The decline is so much more pronounced.  We are now at the stage where we just try to make her moments bright.  And I can do this without a bag of laundry in my hand.