{"id":22914,"date":"2026-03-11T13:51:27","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T13:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/uncategorized\/was-she-up-to-the-challenge-of-caring-for-her-difficult-mother\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:15:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:15:12","slug":"was-she-up-to-the-challenge-of-caring-for-her-difficult-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/positive-living\/health-and-wellness\/caregiving\/alzheimers-and-dementia\/everyday-coping-for-caregivers\/was-she-up-to-the-challenge-of-caring-for-her-difficult-mother\/","title":{"rendered":"Was She Up to the Challenge of Caring for Her Difficult Mother?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMom, we need to take you to the emergency room.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d rushed to my mother\u2019s apartment at the assisted living facility with my husband, Kevin, after one of the nursing assistants had found Mom on the floor beside her bed, dazed.<\/p>\n

My 92-year-old mother pressed her lips together in a thin line\u2014an expression of defiance I knew all too well. \u201cI don\u2019t need to go to the hospital,\u201d she said. \u201cI just lost my balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

I tamped down my frustration. I wanted so badly to be a good daughter. Patient. Kind. Full of grace. But oh my goodness! Could anything be easy with her? Mom behaved like a stubborn middle child<\/a> even as an adult. Sandwiched between a favored older sister and an adorable baby brother, she\u2019d learned to push back and act out to get attention. But couldn\u2019t she see the huge bruises that were forming on her arms like watercolor splotches? How could I convince her she needed help?<\/p>\n

\u201cShe keeps tapping on the side of the bed or the bathroom counter,\u201d said the nursing assistant. \u201cAs if she\u2019s typing words she can\u2019t think of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom had worked as an accounting clerk for many years. Her mind must have wandered back to those days. Did she have a urinary tract infection? Sometimes infections caused delirium in the elderly, especially those with Alzheimer\u2019s<\/a>. Mom had been diagnosed six years earlier, in 2014, not long after she\u2019d moved from the pine forests of northern California to the facility near us in the prairies of Illinois. She had lived on her own until she\u2019d lost everything to a house fire. She was a widow, and my brother had died. I needed to step up and take care of her.<\/p>\n

In the beginning, Kevin and I were relieved that she lived so close by. I\u2019ll be the perfect daughter, <\/em>I thought. I felt guilty that she couldn\u2019t live with us. Our cats might trip her. Kevin and I worked long hours and traveled often. But I promised I would be her advocate and her supporter. I would take care of her the way an aging parent deserves to be taken care of.<\/p>\n

Day by day, the reality of having Mom so near sank in. She would call us all the time with some small chore or errand that needed to be done.<\/p>\n

\u201cJeanette, do you have any pink thread?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, Mom. Do you need Kevin to go out and get some?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, there\u2019s no rush.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Kevin arrived at the facility with pink thread, Mom looked up at him. \u201cOh,\u201d she said, holding up a needle, \u201cI found some.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everything was a problem for Mom. The food at the assisted living facility\u2014\u201cThe vegetables are overcooked.\u201d The songs they sang at the socials in the dining room\u2014\u201cThey\u2019re too old.\u201d The doctors who tried to help her\u2014\u201cThey don\u2019t listen.\u201d I was soon overwhelmed. Mom seemed to need more of my time and patience every day. More than I could give. Friends wrote on Facebook, \u201cIt\u2019s an honor and a privilege to care for my aging parent.\u201d Was I doing something wrong?<\/p>\n

No matter what I did for her, it never felt like enough. I wanted to be the most <\/em>patient. The most <\/em>kind. The best possible caregiver. I wanted to be more than Mom had been for me growing up. When my brother and I were little, she had been warm and doting, a mother right out of storybooks. Then she divorced my father\u2014an alcoholic<\/a> who cheated on her\u2014when I was six, later marrying another alcoholic.<\/p>\n

Unlike my father, who was charming and affable, my stepfather was abusive. He would berate my brother and me, stomping through the house, yelling and cursing. Mom let him. It felt as if she suddenly didn\u2019t care enough to protect us. Had I done something to deserve this? I was too young to understand the complexities of marriage to an addict. All I knew was that I felt alone and abandoned.<\/p>\n

That was decades ago, <\/em>I reminded myself. I\u2019d long since forgiven Mom for the wrongs of my childhood. I\u2019d made her a part of the family I built with Kevin. Why didn\u2019t I feel honored to care for her as the Bible taught? Why couldn\u2019t I be a better daughter?<\/p>\n

I looked at my mother, sitting up in her bed at the assisted living facility, her mouth still set in a stubborn line, and took a deep breath. \u201cMom,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m worried about you because you are confused and you\u2019ve been typing with your hands all day.\u201d<\/p>\n

She blinked slowly. \u201cHave I?\u201d<\/p>\n

I nodded. \u201cI think you might have a UTI. If we don\u2019t take you to the doctor, it could develop into a kidney infection. Would you put on your coat for us?\u201d<\/p>\n

By the grace of God, she relented. Kevin and I drove her to the hospital, and the three of us sat for more than an hour in the waiting room.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoris Kidgell?\u201d a nurse finally called. For the next three hours, nurses, technicians and a doctor peppered Mom with questions and marshaled her through a slew of tests. Urine samples. X-rays. Blood work.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to speak directly into her ear,\u201d I had to say again and again. Mom was hearing impaired. Was anybody on staff capable of reading her chart? It was right there in black and white! \u201cShe\u2019s lost her hearing aids,\u201d I explained.<\/p>\n

None of the staff members seemed to listen. I felt my blood pressure spike every time a nurse or a technician spoke too softly. I understood it took more time to explain things to Mom, but didn\u2019t she deserve the same courtesy as other patients?<\/p>\n

\u201cMom, the doctor wants to keep you overnight,\u201d I said after the first few rounds of tests.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d she whispered.<\/p>\n

Her brown eyes seemed enormous behind her glasses; her face, so often fixed in opposition, seemed softer, vulnerable. She looked how I must have looked as a little girl. Scared. Alone. Afraid of being abandoned. I wanted to do everything in my power to protect her. To shield her from pain. It dawned on me that I\u2019d never felt this way about Mom before. It was as if our roles were reversed<\/a>, as if I were the mother and she were the child.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll take good care of you,\u201d I said. \u201cKevin will be here first thing in the morning, and I\u2019ll come to see you on my lunch break.\u201d<\/p>\n

As soon as I woke up the next morning, I knew a lunch break visit wouldn\u2019t be enough. Mom needed me. All of me. I took the day off and drove to the hospital. The same feelings from the night before\u2014the ones I\u2019d experienced when my kids were tiny and helpless\u2014welled up inside me. None of my usual guilt or shame. None of the questions that normally cycled through my mind: Am I doing as much as I can? Am I enough? <\/em>It was pure protective energy.<\/p>\n

A young technician came to take Mom for an MRI. \u201cWhere are you taking me?\u201d Mom asked.<\/p>\n

The technician stopped. \u201cYou don\u2019t remember?\u201d<\/p>\n

I shot the tech a stern look. I wanted to scream, She\u2019s 92 years old. She has Alzheimer\u2019s. I\u2019m worried she may have had a stroke. Of course she doesn\u2019t remember! <\/em>Instead, I said calmly, \u201cNo, she doesn\u2019t remember.\u201d Then I held Mom\u2019s hand as the technician wheeled her gurney down the hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is as far as we can allow you to go,\u201d the tech said at the end of the hallway. \u201cYou can sit here and relax. We\u2019ll have your mom out in a jiffy.\u201d<\/p>\n

No way could I relax. I watched the tech wheel Mom away and felt my heart go after her. This wasn\u2019t about guilt. This wasn\u2019t about obligation. This was about love.<\/p>\n

An hour later, the doctor came into Mom\u2019s room and explained she needed surgery on one of her carotid arteries. It was 90 percent blocked. \u201cYou\u2019ll need to discuss it with each other and her regular doctor,\u201d he said. He released her to go home, and we scheduled an appointment with a surgeon for the following week.<\/p>\n

That evening, Kevin and I hugged Mom goodbye in her apartment at the assisted living facility. It wasn\u2019t until I flopped into my bed that night, exhausted, that I realized the enormity of my devotion to Mom over the past 30 hours. Had I really stood up to those doctors and nurses and technicians? Taken off work? I never do those things, <\/em>I thought. Maybe I wasn\u2019t such a terrible caregiver after all. Or such a terrible daughter.<\/p>\n

A thought flashed through my mind, something my friend Dee had told me when she was taking care of her father-in-law at the end of his life. \u201cThere\u2019s no place for guilt in caregiving. All the things you do for your loved one\u2014that\u2019s what really matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

If I could forgive Mom for not being a perfect parent when I was a kid, I could forgive myself for not being the perfect daughter and caregiver now. I\u2019d been doing my best to support her, not just for the past 30 hours but for the past six years. Lord, however many more years you give me with Mom, I\u2019ll be beside her. <\/em>I let go of the idea that the only good caregiver is a perfect one. What I do for my mother is enough. So am I.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For more inspiring stories, subscribe to <\/em>Guideposts<\/strong><\/a> magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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