Gail Sheehy's Newest Book Offers Comfort for Caregivers

In the late summer of my 28^th year I was sitting in the back yard of the first house I had ever owned (courtesy of my hard working husband and the local bank).  I was watching my two preschoolers polishing their sandbox skills from the comfort of my lawn chair, when it suddenly occurred to me that I had achieved every goal I had ever set for my life.

I began to imagine what my life would look like from here on out.  Several scenarios flashed through my mind.  The one that brought me up short was an image of myself sitting at a grand piano in a gracious living room with late afternoon sun slanting through the window.  I was alone, and I was drinking something dark and icy from a highball glass.  It wasn’t Pepsi.

The thought that I was on a path that could very well lead to loneliness and alcoholism was devastating.  I knew that whatever I did, I could not allow my life to go that way.

This was my introduction to an emotional rollercoaster ride that would ultimately result in the setting of new goals and a complete transformation of my life.  The one constant was my children who of course are now all grown up.  This experience was pretty confusing to me.  I felt out of control a lot of the time.  I was very reluctant to reach out for help, because the main help offered to confused women in those days was advice on how to “adjust to your feminine role.”  I didn’t think this was what I needed.

It was Gail Sheehy who ultimately did clarify for me what I had been going through.  When her groundbreaking book Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Lifewas published in 1976,  it illuminated for me my struggle to negotiate what she called the “Catch-Thirties.”   Gail showed me that what had been happening with me was normal. There was even a name for it.  What a relief.  I was not crazy, and I was not alone.

Now more than 30 years later, Gail is releasing her newest work Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence today, May 4, 2010 (see our bookshelf  for more information about this book ) .   It feels like a familiar hand is again reaching out to me as I struggle with a new life passage as caregiver to my elderly father.  Once again it is my “big sister” Gail shining her light on the path before me.  She writes out of her own deep experience as caregiver to her dying husband and from the knowledge she has gained from the many interviews she conducted with other caregivers in preparation for this book.  We caregivers are not alone.

Technorati Tags: aging, Caregiver Confusion, caregiver health, caregiver mental health, caregiver stress, elder parent care, family caregiver, healthy aging, senior care