Resignation v. Resiliency

How wonderful it would be if all of us were aware of the everyday activities that just blend into the background of living, but which make such a difference in our lives.  Driving to the supermarket to pick up a missing ingredient for tonight's supper, vacuuming the house, weeding the garden.  Everyday stuff that seems precious beyond words when one circumstance or another takes them permanently off a to-do list.

It's easy in those times to feel a sense of resignation to life.  How many times do older friends or clients heave a sigh & talk about "Well, that's just the way it is.  I have to make the best of it," or "God knows what's best."  Heartbreaking, hearing the resignation, the sense of powerlessness.  

Way back in 2000, Mom wrote about life at ninety:  Today. my body constantly clues me in that it is merely temporary.  It is  breaking down.  That is in the order of things, however rotten it is to  experience.  I take two strong pain pills a day and I have excellent and open  doctors.  I live in a supportive household with two "youngsters" who love me.  My daughter badgered and brow beat me to think for myself rather than  constantly trying to mirror back what I thought she or others wanted me to  say or do.  She was the burr under my saddle for change, but the catalyst was  my son-in-law, who is remarkably gifted in the ways of healthy communication.

Yes, I did badger her to think for herself rather than drift into resignation. In the beginning, it can take a lot of energy to choose resiliency over resignation.  Resignation is so simple, just follow the path of least resistance by turning over responsibility for life to fate, to your kids or caretakers, to God. Again, Mom described how she felt at those times: Many women of my generation  anchored our identities on others, those we took care of and nourished.  Personally, I balked at sparing time or energy to think and act for myself.  

Prime breeding grounds for resignation.  It drove me nuts, how Mom would negate herself, would try to defer to an other rather than stand on her own two feet.  Whenever the whiff of conflict arose, I could see her shut down before my very eyes, resigning herself to where she assumed she belonged - in the wrong.  

arrrggggghhhhhh!

It took me years, but I finally realized that if my response was to drop my hands to my side & say, with great exaggeration & in my worst Cajun dialect,  "You is de biggest..." (draw hands up to my hips, so my arms were akimbo) "...de baddest..." (make a full circle with my arms & hands) "...de most no-account grannie on de face of de eahth!"  she'd crack up & would be back with me, rather than resigned to some inner netherworld.  

And, much to my delighted surprise, she learned.  She learned that when she laughed, things got better.  She learned that something SHE did could make things better.  She learned that she could, on her own, turn things around.  That she didn't have to be resigned to feeling less.  She learned that by taking the initiative, she could feel more.  

It wasn't my intention to create an environment where Mom could develop greater & greater resiliency, although that is what happened.  And once she started to get more resilient, it just grew & grew.  Once she had a taste, she wanted more.

All of what I've learned over the decades about how to provide support to older friends & loved ones came through real-life experience.  A LOT of it happened, like discovering the importance of resiliency, through sheer luck, happenstance.  I'd love to say that it's an easy thing to do, but it was difficult tough exasperating.  But I respected Mom too much to see her trapped in that bleak disempowered half life.  

Weird - just hit me that my hope for Mom was the same as the hope I had for my BACS 6th grade students, for my Prudential coworkers, for John - that they have enough confidence in themselves to connect with & express their own opinions.  That was beyond hard for Mom - it was impossible.  She literally needed a psychologist's help to learn how to recognize & respect her own opinions.

Developing resiliency can be tough at any age, but especially when we "trip the oldometer" (another Mom phrase!) into serious older age.  Then, it can be tough & painful & go against what our instincts say is the wisest course of action (aka lay low & cause as little disturbance as possible). 

Thanks largely to my goofy attempt at helping her snap out of self-negating behavior, Mom stop being a victim of outside forces & realized SHE could  make things better.  Not like she did twenty, thirty, forty years before, but what she could in her here & now, whatever that might feel like. As Mom wrote:   It is not all "beer and skittles" - there are rough patches. The changes  that come   with old age are scary, especially changes in life roles.  I have  not enjoyed the hands-on role of wife for over 26 years.  At ninety, I cannot  even manage the role I played as a parent.  The resources just are not there.    I cannot provide massive emotional or even minor financial support.   I  cannot wash a floor or do the grocery shopping or even dust my own room. (I   can still shell hard boiled eggs and clean mushrooms!)    

In Katharine Reynolds Lockhart v. Resignation, Mom - and resiliency - won!