Superman, move over. Wonder Woman, hand over your cape. There’s another group of heroes in town, and no matter how many times you’ve saved the nation, they deserve it more.
Family members of elders.
Of course, they are care partners, although they may not feel like it if their elder lives in a care situation and someone else does the hands-on care. But they are full-fledged, cape-worthy heroes. Well, most of the time.
Here’s a secret. I worked in a continuum, and the joy of this meant that when an elder couldn’t function in their apartment, even with supports, they could move to full-time care on the first floor and not be far from their friends or any farther from their family.
That’s not the secret. When the news would filter down that Mrs. Jones would be moving, the first questions I asked had nothing to do with the elder. In our close-knit community, I usually knew. My question remained, “What’s the family like?” The answer could make or break the next several weeks (or years!) as I worked to help them to transition to this new level of care.
Here’s what I learned about families.
They come in all denominations
Family might be a wife or husband, children, a sibling or sometimes not family at all. One of the sweetest “family 
members” I ever encountered was a goddaughter, the only person left to a cranky, strong-willed single man. In his entire life, he’d lived exactly as he wanted, and didn’t appreciate that he needed to make some accommodations to others in his nineties. She and I had long phone conversations and exchanged emails, trying to work through one problem or other with “His Grumpiness.” She hadn’t heard about my retirement, and a few months later I received an email from her, telling me how much my support meant to her. Her words meant the world to me.
They struggle with transition
Whether their elder moved from the community or from the building, the move is a result of months of angst on everyone’s part and brought physical and emotional exhaustion. It can take six weeks, sometimes longer, to transition to the new situation. It’s hard.
Trust may come slowly…or not at all
Although they might feel frustrated, angry, afraid or overwhelmed in those first weeks, each family hands over their loved one with some level of trepidation. Mom may drive you nuts, but she’s still Mom, and learning to trust the people who will care for her is a process. My response to their questions and problems, especially in the first few days, would establish trust, or not. And sometimes a single incident could break it.
I hate this story and cringe at retelling it, but it illustrates the point perfectly. When Mr. W. moved into my neighbourhood his daughters made it clear that they were in charge. I took months to establish a working relationship with them. The day before I left on vacation one year, I removed a reclining chair which belonged to us from his room. Mr. W. didn’t use it any more, another lady needed it, and he needed more room for his new, larger wheelchair. When I returned from vacation, I discovered the chair I was positive belonged to us had actually been purchased by the family. The expression “the poop had hit the fan” doesn’t begin to cover it, and I spent weeks repairing the damage. I lost track of how many times I apologized. I ate crow. Lots of it. About a year later, when Mr. W. passed away, the family sent a lovely gift basket to the staff, praising them for the help they’d been, but I still wondered if I’d been forgiven. I learned a valuable lesson: always ask. If I’d checked with the family, the whole mess could have been avoided. (Still, it makes a great, cringe-worthy story!)
Dysfunctional only gets worse
If a family works together and enjoys each other before a crisis, they will find a way through. There might be bumps, but they’ll work it out, and those families were a joy to work with. Dysfunctional families grow more so as time passes and…it can be difficult.
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