Supporting all who care for elders
Barbara sat in her car in the parking lot of her mother’s new home, staring at her hands and feeling like the worst daughter ever. About a month ago, they’d moved her mom, Hazel, into long-term-care. From the first conversation, through downsizing, the move itself and beyond, they’d worked as a family team with minimal […]
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Hazel looked around her bedroom from the proximity of her pillow. Bins and boxes lay piled in one corner, and the knowledge that she’d just had her last sleep in this room sat heavily on her chest. Not that she had strong ties to the room, but today she moved to long-term-care and she knew
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Hazel smiled, remembering the day she’d had a meltdown in her kitchen. Thank goodness she’d been alone. Her son had called with good news. The place they’d picked for her to live, their top choice of many, had called to say she’d been accepted and was on a waiting list. She knew the stark reality
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After my husband died, my friends would often take me shopping with them. I’ve always hated shopping, but I needed companionship so I’d follow them around the stores like a lost puppy. On one of these excursions to a craft store, my friend went in search of what she needed and I wandered the aisles
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It was time. Hazel knew it and she felt sure her family knew it. No significant conversations about the topic had occurred, but her son had asked her to dinner tonight and the rest of the family would be there. Hazel had a sense she would be the topic of conversation. She knew her kids
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In my family, a conspiracy of silence existed when it came to me. A basic “don’t tell Ann anything” policy. I think the motivation came from an urge to protect, but it left gaps in my knowledge until adulthood. When I came home from school that day at nine and saw my mom and my
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I always had a love-hate relationship with Twilight Zone. ( If you don’t know what I mean by that, you are too young to read this post.) A normal person or family, lived their normal life at the beginning of the show. You sat on the edge of your seat because you knew within a
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All winter I watched it. The log on the side of the pathway had split from the freeze-thaw-freeze of our Canadian winters. Scarcely a centimetre wide, the split travelled the length of the log, and it looked like someone had stuck a twig in the crevice. Strangely drawn to the skinny, fragile twig, I checked
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Are you going nuts yet? This question could probably legitimately be asked of every person on the planet. All of our emotions swerve over this rollercoaster of life each day. We are hopeful, then angry, frightened then grieving, sick and then improving–or not. We’ve gone beyond hoarding and wondering when this will be over to
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It began “over there.” My mental picture of China is busy markets and crowds of people. Most of them wearing masks. But I know people living in China, so I prayed for them and their safety. I lived my life while the storm rumbled in the background. At church, they cautioned us not to hug
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