“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”. Jim Rohn

That said, I spend my time with a 99 year old lady with severe dementia. All of my time.  Constantly. Each shift being three to five weeks long. 

How many people am I the average of now?

From one minute to the next, I don't know what I am going to be met with. Who am I? Her sister? A long lost friend? A stranger?

Where am I?

What story am I walking in to? 

Does she eat porridge today, or does she despise it, as was the case yesterday? Will she take her medicine? Or spit it out? Or politely refuse it, with all the charm and grace of the Queen Mother?

Will she be happy to see me? "Oh, my darling, how lovely of you to visit. Will you be staying long?"

Or will I be in the way? "Stop it! You are always interfering when I need to discipline this boy! Get out!"

How many plates will she break today? Will her tea end up splashed over the wall as she tries to fend off a threatening stranger (or the little boy who teases her?)

When she calls for her mother, is it because they are rushing to catch the midnight train? Or looking for her sister? Or is she simply wanting to die?

Will she allow the assisting carer in today? Or will she send her packing, with a "and don't you come back here, you are not wanted!"? Leaving me with a bedridden old lady to spend the night in tea-stained pyjamas and a wet diaper? And the fourteen hours of complaints that will follow before the next carer arrives, at 8am the following day?

Why do I do this? Who is it helping? Does the old lady even know that she is in her own home? "I just want to go home to my dog and my mother" is the plaintive cry I hear at least once a day.

Is it helping her family? Who visit once a month for two days, work permitting? Do they feel less guilty for leaving her, knowing that she is at home with a live in carer, and not in an institution? 

I wish I knew the answers.

What I do know is this. As I opened her curtains this morning, she reached her arms out to me, told me how much she loves me, wishes we could spend just one more night together as if I was a soon-to-be-gone lover, and my heart broke. With love for this poor old lady who retains all the vibrancy of youth. With sadness, knowing that one morning she will not wake up. With despair, because I don't know if I can carry on with this lifestyle for much longer. But for as long as I can, I will strive to make her last days, months, years at this rate, as good as I can for her.