Songlines

The aboriginal peoples of Australia believe that there are tracks across Australia that were created by the creators during a time known as the Dreaming. During the Dreaming, these creators sung the world and all the things in it into existence.  If you know the words of the songs and their sequence, today you can still follow these tracks.  Songlines are, for all intents and purposes, a musical map that can help you navigate accurately for great distances. 

We all have our own songlines.  Where we are going, how we are getting there, and how we navigate our lives are the tracks of those songlines.  Sometimes they operate independently, sometimes they run parallel with someone else’s, sometimes they intersect, and sometimes you forget the words to your songline and have to try and remember them again.  In many ways, they can be maps of our lives.

This past month, my songline and those of my family have started on a new verse.  This is one that I have suspected was coming for a long time, and one that none of us was really looking forward to.  You see, my father had his 6^th stroke.  Amazingly, he was able to recover pretty well from the first 5.  This one, however, had a much more involved impact on him, both physically and intellectually.  He is now home, but is not fully independent.  He probably won’t ever drive a car again, and will need supervision at home.  That said, in many ways, he is still the same man that he was.  Just some parts of who he was just aren’t there anymore.  He is now using a walker or a wheelchair, and some of those higher-order thinking skills aren’t there.  But in many ways, he still is who he was.  The rest of us, however, are in transition.

My parents have been together since my father was 17 and my mother was 15.  They are in their mid-70s now.  While they have been equals in their relationship, dad was often the final arbiter.  That has now changed.  Mom is now in charge, and is, in many ways, his chief caretaker. 

My younger sister lives close to my parents.  She now has seen her life change as well.  She has had to step up and commit time to overseeing what is going on with our parents.  This is a new role for her, and one she is not particularly comfortable with. 

I find myself more and more in the parent role in the family.  Providing guidance and being a sounding board for my mother as she moves through this.  Also I find myself providing a place for my sister to vent her fears and frustration, as she really has not had much experience with the world of disability and leaned heavily on my father throughout her life.   

Looking at this situation, for my mother and sister, in many ways it is like when you first find out your child has a disability, except now it is not your child, but a parent or spouse.  For me, I’m discovering that while I can be empathetic to what they are thinking and feeling, I am also discovering how the years of dealing with all the issues that arise from raising a child with a disability have made me incredibly pragmatic.  How quickly both my wife and I moved into the mode that got us through various crises early in our son’s life.  What is going on?  What are the details?  What can we fix?  What can we ameliorate?  What cannot be changed?  What do we need to do in the future?  What will that near future look like?  How can we plan and prep for issues and concerns? 

We’ve been there many times in the past, and now we’re trying to help my mother and sister develop some of this perspective.  Not letting the highs be too high or the lows too low.    Funny, here we go again, with the recalling of my favorite poem, the one by Rudyard Kipling, titled, “If”.  Read it sometime if you have a chance because in many ways it describes how to survive in the special needs world as a parent.  And as I’m now discovering, it also gives a game plan for surviving in a world when one of your parents start falling victim to the ravages of age, health, and time.

So where is my songline leading now?  I’m not sure.  I’m not sure if I really know the words to this song for myself, or if I can help my sister, my mother, and my father find their words in this new world and this new map they are trying to learn how to follow.   We’ll only know by trying and seeing where the song takes us on this map.  One thing I do know is that our son seems to understand what words his songline is singing.  He offered to go up to Virginia and help.  He said he didn’t know what he could do, or how he could help, but if he was needed, he would go.  That is heartening to me.  Maybe at least our songlines went to the right places when trying to teach him.  That gives me hope that maybe I can find the correct words for my map for the future.