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By Carol June 7th, 2011
Exploring the Gifts of Caregiving
Caregiving can be hard. Really, really hard. As Bill has said, it can feel a lot like rolling a boulder up a steep hill only to have it plunge back down to the bottom over and over again. I have also heard caregivers describe the job as an endless roller coaster ride or a long slog through a muddy marsh in the rain.
Part of what makes caregiving so challenging is that many of us start out knowing very little about the crucial medical, legal and social service domains that impact the elderly. When Bill and I were caregivers for my dad, Frank, we needed to master all sorts of new topics we truly did not want to know so much about–living wills and advance directives for example. The …
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By Carol June 5th, 2011
Bill and I celebrated Memorial Day by seeing Meek’s Cutoff, the Kelly Reichardt film about taking a wrong turn on the Oregon Trail. A tiny group of 19th Century pioneers face uncertainty and loneliness as they attempt to cross a desert wasteland in hopes of finding a new and better life in the Willamette Valley.
The tension mounts as the pioneers slowly realize that they are not only lost but endangered by their inability to locate a source of water. Will they find water before they die of thirst? Whom can they trust to guide them to safety? As the questions accumulate, the travelers’ insecurity and fear grow.
Meek’s Cutoff is not my favorite movie. Maybe this is because it isn’t so much fun to watch. Maybe it is because it hit a …
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By Carol August 30th, 2010
Recently I came across an essay by 20th Century fashion illustrator Polly Francis, the first of a three part series originally written for the Washington Post. Polly writes about her experiences of life as a nonagenarian:
“A new set of faculties seems to be coming into operation. I seem to be awakening to a larger world of wonderment—to catch little glimpses of the immensity and diversity of creation. More than at any other time in my life, I seem to be aware of the beauties of our spinning planet and the sky above. And now I have the time to enjoy them. I feel that old age sharpens our awareness.”
by Delia Margaret Tighe Francis (1884-1978), written at age 91 in “The Autumn of My Life,” Songs of Experience, Ballantine Books, 1991
Reading Polly’s …
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By Carol June 8th, 2010
When I became the primary caregiver for my elderly father, I was immediately confronted with my own fear of growing old. Everything I saw reinforced my belief that old-old age is a miserable stage of life leading to increasing loss, disappointment and painful isolation. Not to speak of unrelenting physical pain and debility. And fearful mental confusion and shameful loss of dignity. I tried hard to deny that this had anything to do with me, but of course my pain for my father was doubled by my mostly unconscious fear for myself.
I am not special or unusual in this—it is human to fear our own decline and death. And, like me, many of us try to ignore or deny the fear for awhile. At a certain point, I think we all feel the …
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By Carol May 23rd, 2010
Part Three of Three
Learning about the theory of gerotranscendence changed everything for me as a caregiver of an aging parent. In his book Gerotranscendence, Lars Tornstam talks about problems the mental set of younger caregivers can create when they are trying to understand the very old. We have been taught to see it as a problem when an old person seems disengaged. We fear that our aging parent might be depressed or sick. He might have dementia. He may have reached a stage where he is in a retreat from life as a preparation for death.
New Perspectives on the Inner Life of the Very Old
Tornstam’s research has uncovered another possible reason for what might look like disengagement from life. In the developmental stage of gerotranscendence, an elder’s self perceptions and perceptions …
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