My challenge: Learning to walk through the valley of in-between

I’m living in a strange in-between time now. Evelyn is central to my life, and yet in some ways, she’s not a part of my life at all.

She’s here

I spend an hour or two with her almost every day, planning my schedule around when I will visit her. If I decide to go out of town, I calculate how long it will be between visits and wonder if I’ll be gone too long. I’m in constant touch with our two private-pay companions, one of whom is with her every late afternoon and evening. I spent two hours on the phone with three different medical offices yesterday morning, trying to resolve one doctor bill.

I’m buying little gifts for us to give her during Christmas and Christmas Eve visits, even though I’m pretty sure she doesn’t have much sense of the holiday and won’t remember where the gifts came from.

She’s not here

But although I’m constantly engaged with Evelyn, I feel strongly that my life should mean something in addition to “loving caregiver.”

And I’m coming to terms with the reality that the everyday life I had with her has ended.

I’m slowly, slowly giving away the clothes and jewelry I don’t expect her to need again. It dawned on me the other day I don’t need to keep her cosmetics and creams and curling irons. I need to clear them out of “her” bathroom drawers I never open. I’ve got stuff I could put in there!

Likewise with her dresser. Maybe this year I’ll clean it out.

The closet, the bathroom, the kitchen—they’re mine, now, not ours. I need to start living that way.

Others are acknowledging my life alone. Christmas cards are coming addressed to “Mark Taylor,” not “Mark and Evelyn Taylor.”

When I see them, I think, Evelyn’s still here. She needs to see the Christmas cards, too. So I take them to open with her. Sometimes she seems to know about the people who signed them. She handles the cards and reads aloud the greetings inside.

Some come addressed to both of us, and that gives me pause, too. Evelyn won’t care that we got this card and wouldn’t notice if she didn’t see it, I realize.

I’m uncomfortable not seeing her name on the card and sad when I do. It’s the state of in-between I’m learning how to manage.

I try to be matter-of-fact when people ask me about Evelyn. Or I try not to notice if they don’t ask about her at all. We have important or fun things to talk about; there’s nothing new to say about Evelyn. But how can we who know her enjoy a pleasant conversation and not mention her?

We will celebrate

I find myself trying to explain this state of in-between. Last week a friend asked me, “Will the place where Evelyn’s living allow her to come be with your family during Christmas?”

“Oh, they’d permit it,” I answered, “but it’s out of the question.” She wouldn’t enjoy it. It would be difficult to get her in and out of the car and in and out of the house. Our time with her would be centered around keeping her comfortable or occupied. I would be sad if she didn’t recognize our house and worried if she liked it so much she didn’t want to leave.

But it will seem strange to celebrate with my whole family except her.

We will remember

As a reminder of her presence in our lives, I placed a picture of her among the decorations on the buffet in our dining room. Actually, it’s a montage of photographs, a smaller version of the poster I created for the shadow box outside her room at Artis.

I wanted everyone who serves or greets her there to see her beautiful engagement picture, to see her interacting with her kids and with our grandson. The photographs come from happy times together over a span of decades. (Facebook friends can see the picture by itself with my link to this post there.)

Now it’s as if she’ll be with us, smiling at our happy family times, enjoying the Christmas china she was so pleased to collect, laughing at jokes she would have enjoyed.

Is this weird or wonderful? I don’t know. I think it’s somewhere in-between. It’s just one more symbol of the valley I feel myself walking through these days, the valley of the in-between, the surreal days of living with her and without her all at the same time.

I heard a teacher the other day quote a proverb for life: “The only way out is through.” I know it applies to me. And I’m praying for grace to savor the journey as I recommit to just keep walking.