At the close of our Business Women’s Meetings, we recite the Club Collect. One line of the Collect says, “Let us forget not to be kind…” The Collect is a prayer to remind us to be better human beings.
Today, I was inspired to write about the things caregivers should not forget to do, think, or feel. The prayer is jam-packed with words of wisdom, but my focus today is of “forget not” and we will begin with the original concept.
Forget not to be kind: First, kindness is not the same as weakness; in fact, we gain strength through kindness. The dictionary definition of kindness is “the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.” Those are all qualities of kindness, but we should strive for more. It’s easier to be kind to some people than it is others. To be kind to a difficult person requires a conscious effort! One person you should always be kind to is YOU.
Forget not to be flexible: When things
do not go according to plan, go with what works. Each day brings new challenges
for a caregiver. Unfortunately, if your loved one has dementia, the same
solution that worked the day before may not work again. Being flexible means
looking at other possibilities.
Forget not to love: A person with dementia may not demonstrate love in the same manner they did before the disease. Jim was always a loving person, but as his dementia progressed, he changed. I missed the way he had been throughout our first twenty-five years of our marriage, and learned to love him unconditionally through the last ten years of his life. In many ways, he was a different, more vulnerable, person, and my love for him became more protective. I didn’t look back, and I didn’t think about the future.
Forget not to be generous: Jim taught me to be generous. He was the most unselfish person I ever knew. He would give his last ten dollars to a family member that needed it worse than he did. That’s just the way he was. I was horrified when I learned he took $1000 out of our account to give it to a friend. His trust was not misplaced, because eventually, the friend repaid him. I never made it to Jim’s standard of generosity, but I took baby steps in the right direction.
Forget not to give time: The most important gift we can give to our loved ones is the gift of our time. As I visited Jim on a nearly daily basis, I noticed most residents seldom, or never, had any visitors. Jim had family that looked out for him on a daily basis. We worked with nursing home staff to make his life as comfortable as possible.
Forget not those who have forgotten you: In support group, one of the questions we often had was why visit your loved one if they don’t know who you are. Jim’s aphasia meant that he was a man of few words. Sometimes, he got teary-eyed when he saw a friend or relative he hadn’t seen in a long time. I explained that his reaction meant that he remember them.
Being an un-paid family caregiver for a person with dementia is the ultimate act of love. Knowing when to say “when” can be an act of kindness. The nursing home decision is a difficult choice, but sometimes it is the best choice for the caregiver and their loved one.
Copyright © June 2023 by L.S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com
#ENDALZ
No comments:
Post a Comment