It seems that things are starting to take shape, and I’m gaining a bit more strength each week, with a bit more light and hope guiding me toward where I want to go. These new chronicles will be as challenging as the last ones because there are many emotions and realities to face, as you’ve already seen in my previous post just how hard it can be. I smile at life every day; I try to find the beauty in everything, but there are many times when my heart wants to deny what it’s seeing because it doesn’t align with what my soul should feel. And from this, denial is born. We’ve all felt that rejection toward something we don’t want to believe, don’t want to see, and even less, accept. Today I want to talk about the denial I experienced at the beginning of this new chapter as a caregiver.

I promised these chronicles would be fun, and they will be, but I think you need to understand the real situation—the raw, unfiltered inside view of a caregiver’s life, of a person responsible for someone who, in my case, doesn’t even know who I am. Becoming a caregiver doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process—a process in which some people give up along the way, others never start, many abandon when the obstacles come, and some keep going until the end. I’m walking this path, going with the flow, without thinking too much because if I do…

About four years ago, everything was smooth sailing (if that’s how the saying goes; if not, screw it). My teenage kids were becoming more mature and responsible, and I started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I could sense my freedom approaching, the freedom that would allow me to spend more time with my boyfriend in Madrid. At that point, after three years of a long-distance relationship, we were beginning to question our future. My plan was to spend more time with him in Madrid once my kids finished high school. Up to that point, everything was great. But then, one day…

It was just a normal, ordinary day. I can’t say I didn’t see it coming, but I think I didn’t want to see it coming. My mom lived alone in her apartment in Madrid and used to visit me often, or I’d go visit her. During one of my visits, while spending the weekend with her, I started noticing strange things. She kept repeating the same things to me. When I told her she had already told me, she got upset. When I asked about her medications, she told me she didn’t take any, only to later tell me she did (I realized she either took too many or not enough). She forgot people’s names and the names of some objects. Although I had noticed other odd behaviors before, I didn’t want to believe something was wrong.

At first, my attitude toward her was one of frustration. I couldn’t believe she couldn’t remember things; I thought she wasn’t trying hard enough to remember. I got frustrated with her, scolded her, repeated things over and over, yelled out of frustration—the denial had taken hold of me. It was in a moment, an instant, that although I was still in denial, I had to take action and solve the problem. The decision to have her move in with us in Alicante wasn’t easy. It meant leaving her home where she had lived almost her entire life, my grandparents’ home, leaving behind all her memories, her friends, everything material.

Here in Alicante, the first years were very, very frustrating for me and for my kids. We couldn’t accept the state she was in. She kept saying she wanted to go back home. Every time my boyfriend came to visit me from Madrid, she would pack her suitcase and tell him she was going with him. It was a couple of years of this loop until little by little, her memory started fading more and more. My kids and I took turns taking care of her because I couldn’t do it alone; I refused. I didn’t want to accept that my mom was no longer my mom—or rather, that for her, I was no longer her daughter. The long conversations we used to have about gossip, movies, fashion, my problems, or anything else were gone. I was left alone…

I have to say that denial stayed with me until very recently, and although I can’t say I’ve fully accepted it, I can say I’ve learned to behave better, to be a little more patient, and to try to show her all the love she once gave me and my kids. Denial helps protect us, keeps us safe, but there comes a time when acceptance starts creeping in and knocking on your door. And even though for me, acceptance is a stronger feeling than denial, I’m letting it in little by little.

I imagine I’ll go through more stages. I’ll keep making mistakes and not doing things the way I should or the way others think I should. Now, four years in, I’m still on this path. I see obstacles, but I’ll try to dodge them.