Sundays are heavy. People often
refer to the “Sunday Blues” as that feeling of impending doom that comes toward
the end of the day, when the realization that the weekend is almost over and
Monday is looming on the horizon (this doesn’t apply to those who work retail,
where the term “weekend” doesn’t apply). My Sunday Blues start upon waking up
in the morning and thinking about all the things I need to accomplish.
Saturdays are days I keep to myself, choosing to spend them how I want, but
Sundays? Sundays are full of obligation. That is, they used to be.
I had been Mom’s caregiver since
I moved back to Wichita in 2012. Although, at first, “companion” might have been
a more appropriate term, since she was still living in her home and so was I,
for the most part. After she moved to a retirement community, I became her
“provider,” dropping in several times a week to check on her, make sure she had
snacks and essentials, doing a bit of housekeeping that got overlooked, and
keeping her company. Back then, I could tell her I was going out of town for
the weekend, or I had something else planned, and she would cheerfully give me
a kiss and tell me, “Call me when you get there,” or “OK, Hun, I’ll see you
when I see you.” It was the COVID lockdown – when I showed up one evening for a
routine visit, only to be barred from entering – that my role as “provider”
shifted to something with a little more weight and no good definition. Now I needed
to communicate by phone. Or by waving through the window. The supplies I
brought must be left on a table in the entryway so they could be disinfected. I
left notes I hoped she could read and brought her reminders that she was loved.
I impulsively purchased a large stuffed bear that became her constant
companion, giving her something tangible to hold on to during the time when
physical touch was forbidden. Mom’s isolation meant I had to try and bridge the
gap between being a daughter and being a caregiver, and the weight
increased. Eventually, hospitalization
and declining mental acuity forced our hand, and Mom was transferred to the
“skilled nursing facility” (aka “old folks’ home,” as Mom called it), where I
was a caregiver by proxy, overseer by definition. As I learned the rhythms and
schedules of the nurses, mealtimes, personal care, and housekeeping, I
gradually fell into my own schedule of the Sunday visits, when I knew Mom would
be less likely to have things going on, and our visits wouldn’t be interrupted.
Little by little, as Sundays grew heavier with Mom’s health degenerating and our
worries accumulating, it got to the point where I hated Sundays.
Ironically, it was a Sunday
morning when Mom finally went home, and so my last Sunday visit was to sit by
her side that morning, talking to her as I often did, with the familiar rhythms
and sounds of the day’s routines going on around me. But this time, when I told
her good-bye, I knew it would be the last time we would be together in this
room. As I kissed her cold forehead and cried, smoothing her hair and arranging
Bear in her arm, I expected that the weight that had come to define Sunday for
me would somehow be lifted with the reality of her death. I imagined feeling
grief, yes, but also feeling a sense of freedom from the obligation and worry.
I thought it would be instantaneous. It wasn’t. Days later, after having
cleared out her room, and after picking up her cremains from the mortuary, I expected
the weight lifting then, at least a little bit. But it didn’t. In the days and
weeks that followed, with each fresh bout of grief and tears, I visualized my
feelings of responsibility and guilt being purged and being released. But no.
Now, on this Sunday morning almost three months after Mom’s death, I sit at my kitchen table, gazing out the window, and say to myself, “Well, that was naïve and stupid.” I have nothing to do today except go to church and do laundry. Maybe run to the grocery store - I haven’t decided yet. I could read a book, or write, or take June somewhere. I could visit an antique store I haven’t been to in a while, go to the library, or take June on a long walk. I could take a nap. But the muscle memory of being Mom’s caregiver runs deep, and when Sunday rolls around, I still feel the invisible weight of obligation and the anxiety of responsibility. I tell myself, “It’s over; you don’t need to do that anymore,” yet after lunch I still feel the need to get in my car and drive east to the nursing home. Even though Bear sits on my bedroom bookcase and Mom’s cremains are hidden behind a picture on a shelf, even though the evidence shows me that Mom no longer needs me, I am unable to shake the sense of obligation. Of needing to do something. Of worrying. Of my life being on hold and my time not my own. I sigh and ask myself the unanswerable questions: When will I let myself move on? And when will I be able to let Sundays be just Sundays again?
