In the week after my husband died, several milestones occurred, each bringing its own white-hot pain. Meeting with the pastor and the funeral director to plan a service. Entering the casket room and picking out a plain, pine box. Writing out the words to say at the service. Saying those words. Greeting people afterwards. Talking to the tax office and innumerable other government officials to shut down his life. Unfamiliar and frightening, each brought a special kind of hell. But I dreaded returning to work the most.
My workplace, a close and loving community of frail elderly people who I served and the staff I served alongside, knew me and my journey. Everyone would want to express their condolences. It would be caring and awkward, painful and exhausting. Everything in me recoiled at the attention and exposure, but I needed to face this first day back.
I rode the elevator up to my floor and held my breath as it opened. I expected a quiet hallway at this early hour, but my startled eyes encountered Miss Simpson. Sitting in her wheelchair, her anxious face furrowed and her gentle eyes fixed on the elevator door, I learned later that she had been watching for me for over an hour.
Miss Simpson and I formed a special bond on the day, a few years earlier, when we shared a hot cross bun recipe as I shopped
for ingredients. She lived in an apartment in the same building and often sent mouth-watering cooking smells drifting through the halls of her floor. She leaned on her walker that day and gave me baking hints. We became fast friends. When she suffered a stroke that took away her ability to walk and care for herself, she moved into a room on my floor. I hated the disability which caused her frustration and pain, but I loved Miss Simpson. Her thick, grey hair, always perfectly styled gave her a regal look. Her eyes would twinkle one minute and turn on you with fury the next if she didn’t approve of what you’d said. Miss Simpson taught me every day.
On this day, her furrowed brow and damp eyes searched my face. She loved me, and had waited for my arrival to care for me like no one else could. I dropped my purse and other parcels and knelt by her chair. Her thin arms encircled me in a fierce hug and her disabled hand, curled and made useless by the stroke, patted my cheek. We both dissolved into tears. I absorbed her love and care. When I raised my damp face from her shoulder I quipped, “You aren’t helping!” (But of course, she was.) She laughed and then snorted, then we both laughed. I got to my feet and moved to my desk to start my day. She wheeled down the hall to breakfast.
Of all the people who reached out to me that difficult day, Miss Simpson made the most difference.
It’s a radical concept. A caregiver looks after an elder, not the other way around.
That’s a true story. Caregivers give care.
But care partners… Care partners understand that care is both given and received. Eden alternative defines an elder as “someone who, by virtue of life experience, is here to teach us.” 1
As care partners, we must open our eyes. Elders, even those far more impaired than Miss Simpson, will care for us if we allow it. What is needed?
- Remove barriers, such as the assumption that I can only give and not receive from my elder.
- Look for times when care may have been offered and we missed it.
- Affirm your elder’s ability to care. (“I love it when you…”)
- Ask for care. (“Mom, what do you think of this?”)
This month, we will be looking at reciprocal care, and opening our minds and hearts to the gift of our elders and the care they can still give us.
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https://westridgecarecenter.com/about-us/eden-alternative-philosophy/#:~:text=This%20Principal%2Dcentered%20philosophy%20for,is%20here%20to%20teach%20us.