Caregiving – Does It Find Us or Do We Attract It?
February 9, 2008 by Mary Emma Allen
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
When I read Carol O’dell’s blog post, Did I Attract Caregiving? where she relates about caring for her mother, it touched a cord. I began to wonder:
Did I attract caregiving when it became my responsibility to care for Mother and Auntie, both of whom had Alzheimer’s. Somehow I also became responsible, along with a family friend, for my uncle who never married.
“What would have happened if I said I couldn’t care for Mother?” I once asked another friend.
“But everyone knew you’d do it,” she said. So I guess it was a non-issue as the “everyones” went on with their own lives.
However, there are rewards, as Carol relates, in caring for one’s mother. The spiritual rewards, the personal growth, the understanding of Alzheimer’s and now the reaching out to encourage others through writing and speaking would never have occurred.
Do you wonder, too, as you pursue your caregiving tasks, “Did caregiving find me? Or did I attract it?”
No matter which…remember there are rewards midst the frustrations.
(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen
Mary Emma, since I am a caregiver for my god-sister, I think my situation is a little unique (notice I said “I think.”) I don’t think I attracted caregiving, I think it found me. I believe I was destined to be Gladys’ caregiver.
She is a widow, no siblings, no children, no close relatives, except me and my family. I believe that my mother was put in Gladys’ life so Gladys would have someone to take care of her when she couldn’t take care of herself.
Gladys and her mother took care of me when I was a child and now I take care of Gladys.