Dear Readers,
I seem to have fallen off the radar. Well, this past summer has been kind of epic. I was covered by my fave middle nephew here in Wisconsin on my caregiver duties on two separate occasions, which allowed me to take care of the two major items on my “bucket list.” In mid-July I attended a Camp High Sierra reunion during a long weekend in Mammoth Lakes, California, where I mingled with camp staffers and guests whom I had not seen in five or six decades. Then I explored Ireland for two weeks in August and discovered my roots. (I had determined through DNA analysis by Ancestry.com in early 2019 that I'm over half Irish!)
Now I'm back from my adventures and find myself taking up my live-in caregiver role with noticeably more gusto. So, obviously, I recommend a camp reunion and a trip abroad to all of you caregivers everywhere!
If you can't get away right now, I understand: I didn't get away for five years! But while away from this lifestyle for almost three weeks, I formulated a way of looking at caregiving that just might put a bounce in your step.
Follow me on this. When you analyze what you're doing as a caregiver, you realize that all you have to do is look after a loved one in his or her own home — or in your home — and every day is a success story. Yeah. Every day you are on the job, your patient maintains a quality of life that is totally impossible in any care facility — even the finest one in the world.
How many people in other lines of work can honestly say that every day on the job is a sure-fire success for them? Nobody. But every morning when I come downstairs to do what's necessary to keep my 79-year-old kid sister Robin and her funky dawg comfortable, they're both tickled pink to see me! And by nightfall, we have racked up another day of achievements, while also maintaining a sense of home that we can get only by being in one!
It's YOUR concept now. Wear it with pride, and see how satisfying it is to look at your lot in life in this way.
Okay, I have other confessions to make. I have come to realize that there are many things I can learn from my sister, even though she is wheelchair-bound (after losing a foot to diabetes in 2015) and dealing with considerable dementia.
For one thing, she has been after me for several years to use the automatic dishwasher in her kitchen instead of hand-washing everything at the kitchen sink. Long set in my ways, I have only recently given thought to putting her long-retired automatic dishwasher back into service. Logic dictates that it would be a labor saver.
It's time for me to make more sense, you see? I'm only 81 years old, and, at the rate I'm going, I could live at least a hundred years. That's a lot of dishes to wash by hand. You know?
Robin also scoots around the ground floor of this old house in her wheelchair, decluttering a room at a time. Due to her extensive efforts, the part of the place that the public sees is looking pretty picked-up. Of course, if you descend into the totally creepy (and possibly haunted) basement — or upstairs to a jumbled storage area (including my bedroom) that is equally scary, you conclude that there is room for many more improvements in her vintage abode (built in 1891).
But Robin is an inspiration. I now have visions of mucking out the rest of her home — and the garage (another declared disaster area) — before I expire (around 2038).
She also encourages our surviving siblings to visit us here in Appleton, Wisconsin. Through her efforts, we have hosted visits from an older sister in Lexington, Kentucky; a younger brother in Palmdale, California; and our youngest brother and his wife in Pahrump, Nevada.
More confessions. I should let Robin (a classical musician who has been making great music most of her life) teach me how to play the piano. A violist by profession, she has also taught herself how to play the piano since I got here, and has repeatedly offered to teach me, too. Hey, it would give me a little class, you know? (And if I want to phase into rock-and-roll or boogie-woogie downstream, that would certainly be an option.)
You know what?
The greatest thing about giving care to someone is learning how to let that someone care about you.
I have discovered that Robin is a source of much information about everyday living. She is a woman with many capabilities, is blessed with a phenomenal sense of humor, shows absolutely no signs of depression, and abounds in common sense that I have recently found myself dipping into on a regular basis.
I will let you know how I adjust to the automatic dishwasher, and how the piano lessons go.
You know what else? The more I let it happen, the better this story gets!
—Michael E. Hearons
