I was not a very observant person in my (much) younger years. Like many teenagers and young adults, my primary focus was getting from Point A to Point B in life without too many bumps or scrapes. I didn't take much time to notice the details about what my mom and dad or sisters were doing, outside of paying close attention to the clothes and makeup my sisters would get, which I loved to experiment with when they weren't around.
Over time, I gradually turned from rarely observant to extremely observant, wanting to take in every detail of what was going on around me. Initially, it was about curiosity and not wanting to miss a single moment. But at a certain point, primarily around the time Mom was diagnosed with colon cancer in October 2022, being observant became more of a necessity. I needed to be her eyes and ears, because there was a lot to learn, a lot to remember, and it would have been too overwhelming and stressful for her to try and take it all in and process it by herself.
SEE ALSO (VIP): Caregiver's Diary Part 87: The Cherished Moments
In recent conversations I've had with Mom, she told me something I didn't know and never noticed. Back when we first moved to Charlotte, though she and my dad were both working, they were having trouble making ends meet. The one car they had was having car trouble, and until they were able to pay to get it fixed, they had to make arrangements for getting to and from work. And to get groceries, which was back in the day when there was no such thing as Instacart, they would walk together to the grocery store to pick up the things a family of five needed.
This floored me. The grocery store was about a mile and a half away, but it was mostly an uphill walk along a stretch of four-lane road that, even then, was always super-busy with traffic. If they had a lot to carry back, they'd take a cab on the return trip. I knew Mom and Dad had made a lot of sacrifices for us growing up, but this was one of many details I missed, partly because I was young and partly because even if I had known, it wouldn't have hit me at the time how significant that was.
Since I moved back in to be a full-time caregiver to Mom, which started a little over four years ago, I've noticed a lot about her: how her eyes still light up when my sisters and I are all in the room with her. This is undoubtedly when she is at her happiest and most radiant. I've noticed that despite all she's been through over the last few years, she still has a smile on her face and a joke to tell to everyone she meets. All of those things are things that are the essence of my mom. It's who she has always been.
But I've noticed other things, too. As time has gone on, she has struggled more when she walks. There are more days now when her normal morning routine has to be abbreviated due to an ache or pain she's having. She doesn't ride with me to run short errands as much as she used to, and trips to my sisters' houses are less frequent, with gatherings sometimes being scheduled for her at our house rather than theirs.
I realize this is part of the natural progression of age; I know I'm certainly not a spring chicken anymore, something my body likes to remind me of from time to time.
But watching my mom go through all that she has had two different effects on me: On one hand, she has been so brave and strong, trying to keep her chin up even in the toughest moments. And through it all, she's been worried more about the impact it's had on me than it has on her. She's truly the most selfless person I'll ever know.
The other effect it's had on me is to make me weep over the fact that, in the course of her daily struggles, there's not much more I can do that hasn't already been done. Mom's mobility and stamina challenges aren't going to go away. They are just something we have to manage from day to day.
I'm someone who likes to plan for things on a long-term basis, but in these instances, I'm having to learn to take things day by day, one step at a time. That way, we can better enjoy our time together, the cherished moments, while we still have them. Because time marches on, and sometimes all too quickly.
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