A caretaker's dark moment. Reposted from March 12, 2012.

This morning I woke up at 6 am when I heard Mom awake, she closed the bedroom door, and since she'd been wondering a lot lately, I seemed to have developed quite a sensitive sleep pattern. I found her in her room; drenched in urine. Shivering because of the damp clothing, and hollow uncertain eyes that starred at me with confusion. I comforted her saying it was alright and its probably not really comfortable to sleep like that.

Mom kept the hollowed looked, shaking and exhausting a long "ohhhhhhh brrrrrrrrrrrr." I stripped off her drenched shirt, helped her remove her slippers where the urine had migrated down the pant leg. We took off her Depends which had leaked immensely. By the way, depends are ONLY dependable when the first accident occurs.

I rolled the wet clothes into a ball, put the depends in a plastic bag and offered Mom her bath robe. This seemed to make her realize everything was going to be ok after all. She still shook a little.

I said, "how about a warm bath?"

"Its early and you can relax."

It was a little after 6am and she had gone to sleep around 1030pm the night before. I however did not get home from work until 1am and was in bed around 2am. I glanced at my tired reflection and my pillow calling me back to bed, but I was not thinking about sleep now.

I lead mom to the bathtub and fill it with foaming lavender bath bubbles. I helped her tie back her hair and put on a black hair band. She dipped her toes into the bubbles with a smile, as if she knew her world was not going to crumble around her.

I brought up a space heater and two scented candles for her to relax and enjoy. She closed her eyes and sunk into the tub. She was at rest and content, clean and warm most importantly.

After awhile her skin started to prune like on little kids when they take a bath and she started smiling. I helped her out of the tub now, and then made breakfast. It was a lazy, Spring morning.

I collected the wet bed sheets into a pile. I did laundry again that day- like I did everyday. I did her laundry everyday. Washed, and made her bed. I was her happiness, her contentment, her security. I do this everyday. She needs me.