My mom has required much more help in the last 6 months. Â
She is very weak, sleeps most of the time and can no longer talk but she is still in there.
She is in long term care and she is fed and dressed and helped to the bathroom by the health care aids and nurses that work there. They do a good job but there are still things they don’t and can’t do for her.
She likes to look nice and has a preference about her hair and the way it is done. I have befriended the resident hair dresser and have made sure she does not use the rollers because that’s not my mom’s style. I check to see she is being brought down for her weekly appointment. I brush her hair when I’m there before dinner.
I am the one she asks to remove her chin hairs. She can’t see them but she can feel them and she motions for me to pluck them out for her. It must hurt but she doesn’t flinch.
I have finally arranged foot care for her but for a while there I was also clipping her toe nails and I was terrified I would catch some skin and make her bleed. When my kids were babies no matter how careful I was I clipped their skin once or twice.
We do these things for the people we love as acts of intimacy and love.
What about the way we treat ourselves?
Chin hairs. Sagging skin. Brittle nails.
Lets face it, these are just a few of the many unwelcome changes to our body as we age.
But the body goes through so many changes starting at birth.
We don’t look the same at 4 as we do at 14 or 54 but nevertheless we remain the same person. So if the body is constantly changing, yoga asks the question who are we really? Is there something unchanging in who we are? If so, what is it?
I was thinking about how I care for myself and my own aging body. Do I accept the changes in myself the way I accepted them for my children and my mom? The answer is – not always.
Our bodies are the only real home we have but we are much more than bodies.
Show yourself a little tenderness.