My mom passed over a year ago and we just celebrated what would have been her 95th birthday. So, I am thinking about her more than usual. So, this is not a question but an observation.
I kept a diary every day. Did she eat sufficiently? Was her skin healthy? Did she need nails clipped or hair cut? Was she moving ok? Is anything out of the norm? What new crisis needs a solution. So many things that all caregivers check every day.
But, reading through my diary, I noticed one consistent question: Was she happy today? If she wasn’t, I would invest so much energy in trying to make her happy and felt like a failure if she wasn’t.
I cannot even make myself happy every single day. No one is. Yet, I felt such a burden to do everything, anything to make her smile and happy. Now that I can think more clearly, I realized how much stress I put on myself to make every day great. That is just impossible.
Counseling has helped me.
For those going through this, set realistic expectations. Love them, make them safe and not frightened, as healthy as possible, (given the diagnosis), and be their advocate. That is a huge task. Let happiness come when you are lucky enough to see it… but don’t expect it or try to generate it.
Anyone else experience this?
I am amazed and astonished by the difference in our viewpoints of her. My SIL is really grieving and her 'take' was that her mother, while admittedly 'difficult' was a paragon of virtue and love. My BIL is just glad she's gone and we can all get on with the process of living. He didn't even look at her in her casket. "Loving" was not mentioned in his talk at the funeral. My DH is waffling between some measure of guilt that they ended up having to place her and then she died a week later--so he's dealing with that. He chose not to speak at her funeral.
Was she EVER happy? I honestly do not know. She never admitted to it, at least in my hearing. I mean, all of us have our days and moments, but I never felt that she was happy in any sense of the word, and nothing could have made her so.
I looked at her in her casket, and she didn't look like I had remembered. (I haven't seen her for 4 years). She looked angry, even at 'rest'. I guess that old adage that if you keep 'making that face' it's going to freeze that way. She looked, well, pissed. Like she looked in life.
She was the kind of person who only liked a very few people. She talked the talk, but didn't walk the walk.
Nothing that any one did for her could make her happy. She was in a constant state of angry all the time. I guess she may have had some joy, I wouldn't know.
It's sad. I can't help but compare her to my mom, whom I lost last year--and who went to her final rest looking calm and sweet. My mom wasn't perfect, but she DID love us and we knew it.
Right now my grandson Is not happy with his job because he feels the company does not care about their employees. This company does pay their employees well and has good benefits. He can live on his salary. He won't find another place that pays that well. I told him just look at the job as a means to an end. Go, do a good job and be glad you have one. It pays the bills. Very few people are happy in their jobs. My husband worked in a job he didn't particularly like for 30yrs but it paid well and the bills got paid.
I don't think we should use the word "happy" in everyday life. I think we should use the word content. Are we content with our lives. When I use that word pertaining to everyday life, then yes I am content. Thats a comfortable feeling. Happy is how you feel in a moment.
Some people you can never make happy nor will they ever be content. Why, because their expectations concerning life and people is too high. They can't be happy or content with the small things.
So I learned from my relationship with my mother that finding my happiness is on me, not anyone else.
I try very hard to keep my mom happy, or at the very least address her concerns as best I can. At the same time I become more disinterested, exhausted and yes, depressed, about my own life. This is no coincidence, especially when we’re dealing with people who are sick or dying, and most especially those like my mother who feel cheated and will never be happy, no matter what I do.
Caregivers move quickly from being a spouse or a child to being a caregiver and they seem to feel responsible for everything, and especially for happiness.
Over and over again in my answers I find myself asking our OPs to answer the question "When did life become about happiness, and when did you become responsible for whether or not your loved one is happy?"
Because no matter what stage of life you are in from infant to preschool to school kid to worker and spouse and parent, to grandparent-- life is NEVER ALWAYS HAPPY and not for anyone.
While women in the Ukraine haul water up stories to their family in buckets, meanwhile having prolapse of the uterus from it, while their men fight a war, we here in the USA remain preoccupied with "happiness".
Now, trust me, I love happiness. I thrive on contentment and look for the things that make me content, but I never in my life saw life as about my "happiness". I loved my career as an RN, my family, nature, gardening, reading, walking, travel. I could go on. But hey, there were the failures, the cancer, the broken marriage, the estrangements, the financial struggles, the mistakes, the losses and grief, the earthquakes.
Living isn't a Happy-all-the-time thing, and we can't make it so. Not for ourselves and not for our loved ones. And taking on that responsibility is such a mistake. I am so glad you brought this up for discussion.
You can try your best to remove stresses or not to make yourself stressed.
Try not to "argue" or get "sucked" into an argument. Know when to not say anything, know when to walk away. And pick your battles when it comes to the important things.
If you do the best you can each day
If you make the best decisions given the information you have...
You can sleep well knowing you have done your best that is all anyone can ask of you.
I felt the tug of wanting happiness for someone this week. That little nagging voice of I must do something.. You are so right. I cannot generate it - but I can be grateful when it comes. ❤️