Inside Aging Parent Care

Caregiving: What’s in It for Me?—Redux

By Carol February 19th, 2012

I’ve been poking around the blog this week pulling out a few posts to use as a basis for a submission to a local writing contest. In the process I came across a post that I wrote about a year after Dad’s death. I like it so much that I think it’s worth re-posting. So here it is

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 …

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Finding Meaning in Retirement

By Bill January 19th, 2012

One of my first memories about retirement was when a rancher in my home town quit riding every day when he was 85 years old. A year later he was dead. My father talked about it as though the rancher’s retirement was a death warrant. It shaped my attitude about retirement, in that there was something vaguely morally wrong about stopping going to work every day.

I have been retired since March 2011 and have two jobs. What is interesting about my attitude about retirement is that I acquired it from my father who retired at age 65 and never worked another day. I really do not know how he made the transition to retirement as he never in his life talked about his feelings. I do know he made regular trips to …

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Caregivers and Aging Parents Learn from Opera

By Carol November 15th, 2011

When Dad was courting our stepmother, the lovely Elizabeth, they surprised us all by becoming ardent opera enthusiasts. Each year they bought their season tickets. Then, weeks ahead of each performance, they began preparing by immersing themselves in musical recordings of the coming opera while reading along on the translated librettos. When the night arrived, they would dress in their best—for Dad this was formal wear complete with opera cape—and head downtown for a magic evening of music and drama.

Opera was one of the activities that we looked forward to enjoying with Dad when he moved to Denver toward the end of his life. During his two years with us we saw three live operas and many others on TV and DVD. In the process, Bill and I both grew in our knowledge …

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Libraries are for Caregivers

By Bill June 8th, 2011

Caregiving Information

Monday evening I attended a public meeting at one of Denver’s branch libraries concerning proposed budget cuts for our library system. The great recession has hurt Denver’s sales tax revenue, forcing budget cuts for all City operations for the last three years. The library has reduced hours at all its branches, with most branches open only four days per week with open hours also reduced.

This year’s budget has cuts continuing, resulting in the library’s operations falling below minimum standards. There are several options to deal with the reductions, including closing several branch libraries. The most appealing option is for the voters approving creating a special library district with a property tax mill levy amounting to about $60.00 per year for a $200,000 home. This would provide a more stable funding …

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Caregiving: What’s in It for Me?

By Carol June 7th, 2011

Exploring the Gifts of Caregiving

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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