Did my mother ever reconcile to my departure from Christianity during her life? Probably not, and I'm sure that she prayed about til the end of her days. She did get to where she could joke about it a tiny bit. I came in one day and she said, "You should be proud of me today." I asked why. She said, "Because I was working a crossword puzzle and I knew what a "koan" is." Ha ha.
Although she would probably have preferred to ignore my spiritual orientation, I almost always responded to her comments about her religious beliefs with a kind of in-your-face mirroring. I was willing to be silent, but if she started telling me about some wonderful sermon she had heard, I would often come back with, "Yes, I read a good sermon, too, recently, one by Meister Eckhart." A few weeks ago she started telling me about some preacher she had listened to on TV, and I responded a few moments later by telling her about speaking at the SIG retreat concerning non-duality. None of this was a problem.
The problem that arose was highly complex and was a long time in developing. It was based upon her deep fear of abandonment and simultaneous need for control. Long-term caregiving gradually leads to exhaustion and eventually resentment and anger. She refused to consider moving to an assisted-living facility and refused to let me hire someone to stay with her on weekends, even at the age of 97 when she was frail and starting to fall. When she fell recently, she was angry that it took me 45 minutes to get notified by Life Alert, drive to her home, and lift her off the floor. She began saying, "I've lived too long for my children." This was not true, but she certainly had lived too long in the way that she had insisted upon living. Her greatest nightmare was the thought of having to enter a nursing home, and that was my greatest nightmare also. She would have been miserable, and she would have made my entire family's life miserable. My mother was wonderful in many ways, and had countless good qualities, but she was more persnickety than can be imagined. If I related how her breakfast had to be prepared, you would find it mind-boggling. She had no choice but to be the way she was, and everyone else in the equation was in the same boat. She died one day before having to be transferred to a full-time care facility, and this did not appear to be a coincidence. The story is way more complicated than this, but this short version will give the flavor of it.
Although she would probably have preferred to ignore my spiritual orientation, I almost always responded to her comments about her religious beliefs with a kind of in-your-face mirroring. I was willing to be silent, but if she started telling me about some wonderful sermon she had heard, I would often come back with, "Yes, I read a good sermon, too, recently, one by Meister Eckhart." A few weeks ago she started telling me about some preacher she had listened to on TV, and I responded a few moments later by telling her about speaking at the SIG retreat concerning non-duality. None of this was a problem.
The problem that arose was highly complex and was a long time in developing. It was based upon her deep fear of abandonment and simultaneous need for control. Long-term caregiving gradually leads to exhaustion and eventually resentment and anger. She refused to consider moving to an assisted-living facility and refused to let me hire someone to stay with her on weekends, even at the age of 97 when she was frail and starting to fall. When she fell recently, she was angry that it took me 45 minutes to get notified by Life Alert, drive to her home, and lift her off the floor. She began saying, "I've lived too long for my children." This was not true, but she certainly had lived too long in the way that she had insisted upon living. Her greatest nightmare was the thought of having to enter a nursing home, and that was my greatest nightmare also. She would have been miserable, and she would have made my entire family's life miserable. My mother was wonderful in many ways, and had countless good qualities, but she was more persnickety than can be imagined. If I related how her breakfast had to be prepared, you would find it mind-boggling. She had no choice but to be the way she was, and everyone else in the equation was in the same boat. She died one day before having to be transferred to a full-time care facility, and this did not appear to be a coincidence. The story is way more complicated than this, but this short version will give the flavor of it.
