An aging country can’t rely solely on families, friends and volunteers to provide everything dependent elders need, however well supported they are.
A couple of people in my Facebook group shared a New York Times article from August 2017. The article pointed to the loneliness of caregivers, who shoulder heavy emotional and physical burdens that come from self-sacrificing for a loved one, patient, client or friend. Individual stories vary in their composition.
Carla posts that her best friend, someone she loves most in the world, continues her fight with a cancer diagnosis. There are good days and bad. Carla’s at work, while her mom keeps her friend company.
Then there are those who have left their jobs to tend to our loved ones…moved and redesigned their lifestyles to accommodate a complicated situation…and those who manage a heavy caseload, where their patients look to them for more than they can reasonably provide.
So much comes with caregiving, that until you’re in the shoes—one way or another—you may not understand. And on the personal side, when caregivers stress the brink, they start talking about a nursing home or another type of care facility, which does not always fulfill their expectations.
Years ago, I met a lady in a thrift store. In a wheelchair, she sat alone in the middle of the aisle, waiting for her daughter to come back. She was weak and especially frail.
“All I can do is sit in this chair,” she told me, and with a slight tilt of her head and a half-smile she said, “It’s not too good…not too bad. They take me out some.”
There we were. She told me about her tree—that she sits and watches from her bedroom window every day. We might not think too much of spending life most days being so careful, not moving too much for fear of an emergency; sitting, with only a tree to notice interesting things, comings and goings of a squirrel and some birds, and their work and drama.
Where Facebook and other social media channels are filling a need (and they have risks) for some, they are not always the best tool or even accessible for those without Wi-Fi and other devices. For people living one day at a time in hard and lonely circumstances, there must be something to stimulate the mind and look forward to.