Lifeline

LIFELINE

You carried me, home in your arms G-C-D,G-C-D

You loved me so much, and you kept me from harm

You washed me and fed me, the years how they flew

And now you need my help, and I’ll care for you!

There’s a lifeline that ties me to you, Am-C-G

Life rolls like a wheel through whatever we do

Through all of the hard times and anger we feel G-D9-C-G

The love that we have, well it helps us to heal, G-D9-Am-D

Love’s a lifeline that pulls us all through! D-D7-G-C-D,G-C-D

You’ve nowhere to go, and you don’t like to lean

At the old people’s home, they’re packed in like sardines,

So the baby can sleep in the crib one more year

Put the kids in together, there’s room for you here!

There’s a lifeline that ties me to you

Overnight power runs out the holes in our shoes

When the looking glass flips, there’s no wrong or right

Do the best we can and hold hands in the fight

Love’s a lifeline that pulls us all through!

Most of the time now, you’re clear as a bell

But the body you’re using’s not working so well

And I know we get crazy when our patience is gone

Hey, ain’t it amazing, how we hold on,

To that lifeline that ties me to you

Life rolls like a wheel through whatever we do

Through all of the hard times and anger we feel

The love that we have, well it helps us to heal

Love’s a lifeline that pulls us all through!

Love’s a lifeline that pulls us all through!

Written by Peter Alsop, ©1983, Moose School Music (BMI)

On Fan Club Favorites and Songs On Loss & Grief

www.peteralsop.com

Practicing the art of loving, ... can get us through some of the hardest times we have while we care for our parents. We all have losses to deal with in our lives, but older people often experience losses more frequently. Besides losing family members and friends who have died, there’s the loss of good health and vigor to deal with, ... and loss of time to accomplish dreams that were never realized.

As our own children grow up and begin to go out into the world on their own, many of our parents or older relatives become needful of our help. We then face tough decisions about bringing them back into our own busy lives and home, perhaps acting as their principal caregiver.

My grandmother actually did come to live with us, and it was both difficult and rewarding, as we learned how to get along with each other. In our culture older family members often live by themselves, or in a community of other older people, separate from the younger members of their own families. Many of us Americans grew up in our core nuclear family, without our grandparents in the same house. We didn’t get many real experiences or a clear understanding of how we will age ourselves later in our own lives. So, it was wonderful for my kids to have an older person in our immediate family home.

My dear friend and teacher, Dr. Joseph Cruse talks about a ‘de-cathexis’, ... a letting go that happens within our families. As we children grow up, we need to let go of the expectations that our parents will continue to ‘parent’ us forever. They will always be our parents, but as we become adults and take our own power in the world, their ‘parenting’ behaviors need to transform into a more equal ‘friendship’ type of relationship between equal adults, without the power inequities that happen when children are little and parents are big. We can help to create a healthy balanced relationship with our own aging parents, when we are neither crutches nor burdens to each other.

1980 photo by Ellen Geer of Grandmother, Dad, me, Megan & Willow

I hugged my grandmother often, but I realized one day, ... that it was the only touching that she received. As she depended on us more and more, I was reminded of how like a child she had become, and that little babies get a sense of themselves that is related to how, and how often other people touch them. So I started a program of fifteen-minute foot-rubs for my grandmother, and with her permission, I would turn on a recorder, massage her feet, and ask her pointed questions about her life and our fami