The art of being a caregiver
Today I am writing another very difficult piece neither for sympathy nor for acceptance. I am writing only to tell you that you may now or at some later time become a caregiver yourself. You see, I have had plenty of experience to share since I have been a caregiver for most of my adult life.
Freemon and I married in August 1964. My father died in 1966 and my mother came to live with us seven months later. She was with us until her death in 1987. She was really no trouble at all since she was active up until a month before her death. She had never learned to drive so I took her to appointments and other places she needed to go but it was a pleasure having her and allowing her to watch our only daughter grow up and marry.
Freemon and I looked forward to travel after he took early retirement (the “buy out” with AT&T) in 1991. But, our daughter divorced and moved back with us less than a year later. Once a parent— always a parent--and we helped her as she returned to college for her degree. She remarried several years later.
In 1998, Freemon’s mother sold her house and moved in with us one week later. She had her own suite of rooms and we both adored her. However, within a year, she began to have health problems and was on a walker. Soon, she needed more help and I saw to all her needs, including her hygiene. She died in the early morning hours of January 1, 2006, after three weeks in the hospital. I stayed with her in the hospital because she was my “baby.”
For the first time, my husband and I were living alone without caregiving for another family member. We began to plan travel and were looking forward to that until June, 2007, when he was diagnosed with a very rare auto-immune disease, CIDP, (Google that) and were told up-front that it had no cure, it was progressive and would be fatal in its last stages. This happened and I lost my husband in 2019. Three years before his death, I had begun staying one day a week with a neighbor/ friend diagnosed with aphasia along with care for my husband. This care is continuing today because I know her husband needs one day of golf away from his constant care. Two years ago I began having my widowed friend with Parkinson’s over once a week for lunch and a program/movie on television. She is grateful and so is my church friend with leukemia who I visit whenever possible.
Then, came my dear friend, Roger, entering my life in late 2020. He, like many of you, came to know me through my column writing. I write so candidly about my life that he told me he would like to meet me in person. Like me, he was alone after being widowed in 2018. I agreed to meet him at beautiful Gulpa Gorge outside Hot Springs on a Sunday afternoon. What was supposed to be a brief encounter turned into a four-hour session of getting to know each other before he had to drive back to Greenbrier, Arkansas. I learned he was a retired research chemist who had worked for NASA, Reynolds and Alcoa. He is a brilliant man (a MENSA, no less!) with the greatest sense of humor of anyone I have ever met.
We have continued our deep friendship over the past year and a half as guests in each others’ homes and meeting each other’s close family members who have welcomed each of us with total acceptance and joy. Roger and I have been so thankful that God brought us together for this late-in-life relationship of loving companionship. I am 78 and he is 80.
In March of this year, Roger underwent a biopsy which revealed a very aggressive type of cancer with lymph nodes already affected. He has just now begun chemo treatments and I would like to have the freedom to “see to him” first ahead of my other duties. For this reason, today’s column will be my last for a while. You readers are of great concern to me and I will really miss your faithfulness in writing me your sweet comments after each publication. However, my caregiving must go on and now “my plate is full” as I hope you understand. One thing I DO want to make clear in closing is that sincere caregiving must always be based on love for the other person and never, ever considered an obligation. We learn that from Christ Himself in Matthew 25:3640.
I have spoken with your editor who could not have been more gracious and understanding of the situation, who gave me encouragement, AND who offered me a space to return as a guest columnist from time to time. In the meantime just know that I WILL be missing you.