The layers of Caregiving

By mivillarreal on January 1st, 2017

By Carol Zernial
Wellmed Charitable Foundation Executive Director

My mother recently passed away. This is the common ending of so many caregiving journeys. For us, it was six years after the official Alzheimer’s diagnosis. But it could have been cancer, end-stage renal disease, heart failure, pneumonia, or a number of other conditions that prompt people to pick up the mantle of caregiving.

I was standing in line at the busy Starbucks at the airport to go home. I felt on edge with the pushing of caffeine-craving people with their luggage, the overly loud voice of the woman on her cell phone behind me strategizing about the latest office brouhaha, and the incessant questions of the guy in front of me who wanted to know something about every pastry in the case.

And then it all fell away: the noise and the people. Because it wasn’t important. I was ultimately going to get my coffee and make my flight. And I thought about how helpful this ability to let go of unimportant annoyances would be for caregivers every day. Why did I save my hidden superpower until the end?

It now seems that caregiving built layers around me, like an onion or flower bud, that it is time to shed. At the center is me as I really am. Here, too, is my mother as she really was, without the disease. The next layers are the family and friends who have been on the journey with us. We are surrounded by the layer of the illness.

The next layers are the doctors, nurses and professionals who tried to help us along the way. There are the direct care workers from the assisted living facilities and those who came to our home. There are the medications, medical supplies, books and stuff we used along the way.

So now we don’t need these things or many of the people, and we will let them go. We will be forever grateful to the people who gave my mother the same love and care that we wanted to give her every day. And death has finally gotten rid of the illness that surrounded us.

After removing this layer of disease, we are back to just us: the family and friends. At the center is my mom as she always was before she was sick and will always be in my heart. And me – the person I always was and now the person I want to become in the future. Because I am different now, as we all are after this journey: I was a caregiver.

WellMed Charitable Foundation Executive Director Carol Zernial is a noted gerontologist, radio show host, and Chair of the National Council on Aging. The non-profit WellMed Charitable Foundation focuses on complimentary programs impacting seniors and family caregivers, including weekly telephone learning sessions, evidence-based classes on stress reduction and more. Find out more at www.CaregiverSOS.org or toll-free at 1-866-390-6491.