Tunesday : Everybody Hurts

Everybody Hurts

(Buck/Mills/Stipe/Berry) Performed by R.E.M.

When your day is long
And the night
The night is yours alone
When you're sure you've had enough
Of this life
Well hang on
Don't let yourself go
'Cause everybody cries
And everybody hurts sometimes

Sometimes everything is wrong
Now it's time to sing along
When your day is night alone (hold on)
(Hold on) if you feel like letting go (hold on)
If you think you've had too much
Of this life
Well, hang on

'Cause everybody hurts
Take comfort in your friends
Everybody hurts
Don't throw your hand
Oh, no
Don't throw your hand
If you feel like you're alone
No, no, no, you're not alone

If you're on your own
In this life
The days and nights are long
When you think you've had too much
Of this life
To hang on

Well, everybody hurts sometimes
Everybody cries
And everybody hurts sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes
So, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on

Everybody hurts

You are not alone

At our last book club meeting, we were discussing An Ocean of Minutes (which I was pleased to discover no one else liked any better than I had when I read it last fall), and one of the suggested discussion questions was about caregiving and do we believe that women are expected to act as caregivers more than men. While the other women were nodding, I offered out the fact that my father-in-law has been acting as the primary caregiver for his wife, who suffers from early stage Alzheimer's - which involves more of a failure of body than I would have expected - and that all of us in the family are struck by the care and tenderness that he offers to her as he spends his days helping her to go to the bathroom, cooks all the meals and feeds her, does all of the shopping and tidying and planning; all of the domestic tasks that he let her take care of, alone, for over fifty years. The point I was making was that everybody hurts sometimes, and when it's required, of course men step up, too. And then in the way of all the best book club meetings (and especially when the book itself doesn't spark any kind of interesting debate), others offered up stories, too.

Amanda asked if we had heard of this famous cookbook author who has been suffering from Alzheimer's (I hadn't), and she said that what's making the news is the fact that her husband has been her primary caregiver in their home for years now, but now that his wife's awareness is down to nearly nothing, he has moved his girlfriend into the basement - the two women don't interact, and the man is meeting every definition of taking care of his wife in sickness and in health, but as she has surpassed the point of being a full partner to him, the husband has reached out for support and affection from someone else; everybody hurts sometimes.

This story met with a mixed reaction - I gave the husband a pass on this; if his wife isn't aware of the girlfriend, and that's what it takes for him to keep the sick wife in their own home, what's the real harm? - but others were appalled. And then Sheri told us of a similar situation among people she knows: Apparently this woman started to display symptoms of MS when she was a young wife and mother, and it was such an aggressive strain of the disease, that by the time she was forty, she had essentially lost control of her entire body, is wheelchair-bound, and now relies on her husband to completely take care of her. And, apparently, this man has also moved a girlfriend into the house: he is willing to fulfill his duty to take care of his wife during sickness and in health - he bathes and toilets and dresses and feeds her - but he needs this parallel life as well. And, apparently, the wife is not okay with the situation, but she accepts it as the price of being able to live in her own home. I can't imagine anyone is happy in this story, and the man is equally a superhero and a cad, and the book club exploded with rage. And then, of course, we went back to the cookbook author and had to reconsider whether her awareness of the situation really made a difference. When I was telling Dave about this discussion later, he thought that both men were dicks.

So, fast forward a few days, and my father-in-law got a phone call from one of his nephews saying that his younger sister ("younger", but in her seventies) had tried to kill herself. This sister has always been an outsider - irresponsible, a neglectful mother, and an attention seeker - and she recently lost what little money she had to an internet lonely hearts scheme. So even though she had a son willing to bring her into his home, when he wouldn't allow her access to the internet (because she still believes that her Nigerian prince needs her help), she sent a text out to all of her children saying goodbye and took a bottle of pills. No one knows how serious this attempt on her life was - her son in his room upstairs got the text as she began swallowing pills - but it's sad any way you look at it. And, apparently, when my father-in-law heard about this, he remembered a time when he was a boy and his own mother had tried to commit suicide and he was the one who found her; and he is currently, desperately, overwhelmed. He is wondering if there's a way for him to have a respite week to himself - there is an option for my mother-in-law to spend a week at what is supposed to be a "lovely" residential program, but we'd prefer to find a private nurse who might stay in their home with her; maybe send the old guy off to his brother in Florida - and we're working to find a way to make that happen. Of course men act as caregivers, but it's so important to remember that the carers can be hurting too, and just might need some care themselves.