Healing and the Alzheimer’s Caregiver

During wintertime and the shorter days of daylight, caregivers often experience the “blues,” while caring for a family member with Alzheimer’s or recovering from the experience when that loved one is gone. 

Although we wish for a cure for Alzheimer’s, and researchers are constantly looking for  ways to prevent or cure this disease, none is in sight right now.  However, even though we don’t have healing for the Alzheimer’s victim, I’ve discovered that time helps heal the caregiver.

I can wish my mom and aunt hadn’t experienced this disease, that they’d been able to live a normal life into their eighties and nineties.  However, I consider their lives as valuable even during this jorney through the Alzheimer’s mist.

Once I was able to look past the bittersweet memories and realize I’d learned valuable lessons from these ladies, I could begin to heal.  I also can help preserve a legacy of caring and helping that was part of their lives.  Perhaps I can serve as an extension of their lives as schoolteacher and homemaker, mother and aunt, friend and neighbor, by helping others better understand this disease and bringing comfort when they’re feeling overwhelmed.  

If you’re feeling a tendency toward discouragement, try to look toward the joyful memories, the humorous incidents of caregiving, as well as memories of former years.