Dependence...you dirty little 10 letter word!

For quite a while now I've been thinking a lot about being dependent.  We spend our childhood, teen years and in to our early 20's sometimes, learning and training for the day that we are independent from our parents and on our own.  We spread our wings and fly (sometimes VERY quickly) away from the nest.  After all, that's what we want for our kids isn't it?  To be their own person, independent, self sufficient?  Our world teaches us not to rely on others, they let you down; if you want a job done right, do it yourself, and so forth.  Well that's all fine and dandy when we are young and healthy BUT what about if something happened to us?  What about if we got cancer?

Imagine being a 56 year old woman now.  You've raised 2 grown children, are now single with NO one depending on you or needing you for anything, and you've finally discovered your own freedom, your own independence.  You have an amazing social circle of fabulous (and at times crazy) women!  But it all changes because you got sick.  You never asked for it, it just happened.  You went from thinking all you have is a bit of a nagging cold / cough that won't go away to knowing your life would be over in most likely, less than a year.  As your disease progresses you are forced to lean on your children and your friends.  You are no longer allowed to drive two blocks to buy milk.  You can't work anymore.  You are in so much pain some days that you need help to simply get out of bed and sit in your chair.  You don't have the strength to make yourself breakfast, lunch or dinner.  You have a hard time remembering things and suddenly your child has taken over as your power of attourney because you can't always make decisions for yourself.  You can't remember what day it is or anything about your everyday mundane tasks.  You are completely dependent, in the matter of months, on someone else.  Imagine how frustrating that would be.

I didn't really realize, in full, the effect of losing her independence had had on my mother.  Suddenly the roles in our relationship had changed quite significantly.  More and more I see though, that she is still my mom AND that she NEEDS to still be my mom.  She needs to worry about me getting home safely in the snow. When I am upset about my day I can still tell her about it.  I can lay my head on her tummy like I did when I was a kid and tell her what is troubling me.  She might not be able to do everything BUT she can still be my mom and I will always depend on her for that.  I need to do it more often because a lot of her other freedoms are gone.  If someone took away the things from me that she has had to give up, I think we can all agree the type "A" controlling personality inside me would be severely pissed off!  We have no control over losing our independence sometimes.  Getting sick or getting cancer is one of those times.

Tonight I made breakfast for dinner, steak and eggs, mom had been craving it since Christmas!  There were dishes and mess everywhere when I was finished!  Most delicious meals require a lot of mess :)  I began to complain about all the dishes and mess to clean up but as I started, I thought to myself, at least I'm able to do it.  Something as simple as washing the dishes is something I can still do for myself and it is a task I will be grateful for for as long as I can physically do it.  It is in our nature to complain about the things we have to do that we find sooooo mundane, boring and awful but next time one of those tasks pops up for you, think of it this way....at least you can still do them!  Appreciate your independence (even scrubbing those toilets!!) because you never know when you might just find yourself dependent on someone else to wash your dishes for you.

xo