Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Walk away from righteous indignation
Dr. Michael Camardi
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About Dr. Michael Camardi
Dr. Michael Camardi is a geriatrician at Carilion's Center for Healthy Aging. Age Matters is his new Roanoke Times column, appearing the third Tuesday of every month.
Camardi has been with Carilion for about three years and was one of the experts who reporter Beth Macy spoke to for her series, “Age of Uncertainty.” He wanted to start this column to help answer questions he’s often heard as part of his job.
Camardi was founder and past medical director of the geriatric liaison program for Jacobi Medical Center (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) in Bronx, N .Y.
Camardi trained at Winthrop University Hospital (Stony Brook University Medical School), where he was chief medical resident. He has received numerous commendations for his contributions to education, patient advocacy, community relations and hospital administration.
If you have questions for Camardi, please mail them to him at Center for Healthy Aging, 2118 Rosalind Ave., Roanoke, VA 24014, or e-mail them to extra@roanoke.com with “Age Matters” in the subject line.
Dear Dr. Camardi,
I keep reading what you wrote about getting families back together when the parents get really sick. Right now I am very angry, and I am frustrated and just torn in two about how to handle this.
I recall from one of your articles a situation where you gave some advice I liked about trying to get members of the family involved, in spite of themselves, in the care of their mother when they give all kinds of excuses not to, for nothing than for their own good down the road when the guilt will hit them later for not being there for their mother.
I held that in my heart and believed it, and I called my people to tell them about what's going on and my only sister shows up at my door. My sister who has not sent her so much as a Christmas card all these years suddenly comes out of the woodwork and starts telling me what to do and what's best for Mom. The very nerve of the woman. I'm thinking she just wants to make sure about her share of the will.
And you know, Mom is awful sick with the bone cancer, and where was my sister when Ma gets to crying at night for her pain medicine? Now she went with us to the doctors, and she sat there and asked a hundred questions that if she gave a damn before she would have known and started telling them they did this and that all wrong. And then she told me off in front of them for letting them do it, like she's some kind of big boss.
I tell you, the doctors have been good to Mom and kind to me and don't deserve to be spoken to like that. Well, we had a god-awful fight two nights ago, and I threw her out of the house, and now I feel bad because she's living in her car.
I want to be a family again, but I feel awful hard to her right now. Would you take her back if she was your sister and you thought she just wanted the money?
-- Roanoke
Well, you express some very deep-seated emotions and many valid points. I quite well understand your anger, as you will see later on. I also sense your desire for the togetherness of being a family again. I really think that is beautiful.
I get the sense that you did all that you have done from a sense of duty and love of your mom, without thinking of what you could get in return. That you feel embittered and resentful of someone in your family who didn't know and shoulder your burden is all so very understandable.
Frankly, I do not think there would have been many of us who would have had the goodness of heart to pick up the phone to make that call to someone who had turned her back to you. But you did. I admire you for that.
Some years back, I was in the same place. And I know that nobody wants to be taken advantage of, nobody wants to be taken for a fool, and you feel that your sister's return is really motivated only in the hope of financial return. You may be right.
Now I am going to ask you to explore with me another place. And before we go to that other place, I will tell you now that the journey is not easy, but peace of mind waits for you at the end.
I am going to ask you to consider the first step of that journey: Walk away from the "comfort" of your resentment. Yes, comfort.
I felt justified in my anger, and that made me "comfortable" in my resentment because "I was right." So it felt good after all those years where I was one of the few who "was there" to let my pent-up emotions run with themselves. But at the same time it was tiring, draining and a source of a lot of wasted time and talk.
It was very hard for me to walk away from my righteous indignation when I was in your position. I felt foolish that I was going to "let them get away with it" because somebody else asked me to do what I'm asking you to do now. And I had to get over myself -- no matter if I was right or wrong -- because that person brought me back to what is really important.
That person whom I was supposedly "defending" from these "who-do-they-think-they-are people" while I was carving out the moral high-ground for myself one day asked me to bend down so that with her weakening breath, she could tell me something that stopped me in my tracks.
This is about your mom. Nobody else. Nothing else matters right now than to give her the peace and joy of knowing her daughters are around her for as long her time remains.
The past is for the family to worry about. The present is your gift for your mom. Would it be right to think that your mom, at this painful point, would want your sister to be with her no matter the past? I think so. Moreover, just because you wrote this letter and the goodness you have shown, I think you already know it.
Are you being a fool by taking the first step yet again? Maybe, but why should that concern you after all that has happened?
Mom is not going to judge you (have you noticed that mothers never seem to do that?, and she is all that matters.
I know you feel you are the injured party in all of this, and you may feel that it is just too much to be expected of you after all you have gone through, but I ask you to do this: Sit your sister down, have a heart-to-heart with her, tell her what you expect from her in her behavior, ease up on the drama and be there in dignity for your mom.
Think of it this way: How many times did your mom settle arguments between the two of you? Might you see that she is doing it, even with the way she is, yet again? What greater gift to her children than a mother's peace?
I hope that both of you will take your mom by the hand and give her in return what she really needs and together, help her wait on the Lord.
Open yourself to the possibility of being kicked in the back-side again. Can you take one last chance, for her?
Dr. Michael Camardi is a geriatrician at the Carilion Center for Healthy Aging. His columns run monthly in Extra.
If you have questions for Dr. Camardi, please mail them to him at Center for Healthy Aging, 2118 Rosalind Ave., Roanoke, VA 24014 or e-mail them to extra@roanoke.com with "Age Matters" in the subject line.
