An End, and Moving On

And so, three months later, Mom followed her husband of 70 years. The only surprise was that she had not preceded him.

A year ago, Mom fell – simply collapsed in front of me. I caught her and the injury was trivial, but enough to confine her to bed. For a while, she improved. Once her ankle was healed she could stand long enough to transfer to a wheelchair, come to the table, sit in her recliner.

Then, abruptly, six months ago, she could not. She’s been in decline ever since. Finally, we were grateful for her release. (Though it is, of course, hard on Rich to lose both parents so close together.)

Right now, we’re in a time of rest and recovery. This has been an intense and exhausting year! And after concentrating almost entirely on caring for his parents for more than two years, Rich and I need to pick our own lives back up, and finalize plans for where we shall go and what we shall do.

Not right now, though, it seems – the world has come together to force a period of rest and reflection on us. It is frustrating in many ways, but we also know that we are fortunate. We can stay in this house as long as we need to (though we don’t intend to permanently.) There’s enough money in the bank to get us through.

And food in the pantry. I had deliberately filled the freezer and pantry, in case Mom’s last few weeks were rough and we could not leave her with anyone. (I’m glad to say that was not an issue -she just drifted away from us, really.) But it meant that when Stay At Home recommendations – and orders – came down, we already had food in the house… and a plan.

All food bloggers are seeing a surge in requests for pantry cooking recipes, and I have plenty. I’m not sure I’ll have the energy to write up any new ones for a while, but take a glance at all my social media accounts – I’ll be putting links up to recipes with beans and grains, with canned goods and hardy vegetables, and to meals that someone else can just throw together if the cook is sick.

But all that is temporary. In the long run, I will continue to post about Caregiving from my Kitchen. I’ve learned an immense amount this last year – and now that I won’t be spending all my time learning it, researching it, or just plain figuring it out myself, I’ll be able to share it with you. If anything I write solves a problem or saves some time for any of you, it will be well worth it! (For a while, now, I’ll just be making notes so I don’t forget any of it…)

I would love to hear from you – here, on the Facebook Page, tag in a tweet – what you most hope to read about. Tell me what you need! I can’t guarantee anything – eventually I will research situations I have not experienced but to begin with I’ll stick to what I already know.

For now – take care of yourselves. Take care of your loved ones. This is the way we care for the world.