And I thought my life was complicated while raising four kids, working, and going to school! Caring for an aging parent offers a totally different kind of reality especially if the one you are caring for is not accustomed to having someone else do the caring!
Every year during the month of November we commemorate a variety of very solemn and sometimes even bizarre days; everything from Veteran’s Day to Book Lovers and Sandwich Day and of course all the way to Thanksgiving Day. Each of these days took some effort to be added to the list and means something special to a particular group of people. One exceptional group that sometimes gets lost in the shuffle is the caregiver – especially caregivers of older adults. Beginning in 1994, family caregivers were first recognized during National Family Caregivers Week, but it was President Clinton who was the first to honor caregivers as a month-long celebration, signing the first proclamation declaring November National Family Caregivers Month. Every year since, the American President in office has declared November a month to recognize the challenges, struggles, and tremendous sacrifice millions of family caregivers provide every day.
I remember so clearly the day I asked my sister if she could stay with our 88 year old mom for just a few hours while I ran some errands and just took some time for a much needed breather. Don’t get me wrong, I love my sister and we have a great relationship, but her response to me that day, “Well, what do you want me to do with her?” almost put me over the edge! Not wanting it to become a family crisis, I offered some suggestions and didn’t look back, at least not until I could compose myself.
“So it's not gonna be easy. It's going to be really hard;
we're gonna have to work at this everyday,
but I want to do that because I want you.
I want all of you, forever, everyday.
You and me... everyday.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
The calendar may officially signal springtime while many parts of the country are still covered in snow. Nonetheless as Easter approaches, minds turn to so many bright and beautiful thoughts or as Mark Twain so eloquently put it, “It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heartache, you want it so!
There is a line in the poem Mending Wall by Robert Frost that reads, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Now the poet may not have had caregivers in mind, but this analogy certainly gives plenty of food for thought when it comes to the caregiver and the care receiver.
