The benefits of caring for our older loved ones

Photo by Katarzyna Grabowska on Unsplash

I spent a good deal of time looking after my parents as they got older. And sometimes (because of the particular time and situation) it used to seem as if it had been going on since forever. 

I know that I am exaggerating as I say that. Because I never lived with them when they got older. I  might stay for a night or two, and then come and go.

So, while I  carried out this ‘job’ many times whinging and complaining a  lot, the time came when I learned to accept it, and yes embrace it.

Which, I might add, made it a lot easier, for me and probably for them. By that time my mother had been booked into a nursing home as she couldn’t walk, and knew she needed full time care. I imagine at that stage she had begun to realise that I was not the one to help her.

Then I was left with my dad. Here was someone at 94 years with the internal organs of a 60-year-old and the determination of a star rugby player. 

None of this was his fault..

But Dad and I were both suffering for the same reasons.  He was getting old and more needy, and more frustrated because he was needy, and more paranoid.  

I was beginning to learn one hard thing.   None of this was his fault. 

I decided that there was no point in whinging, in giving out about being cooped up indoors, or worse, being blamed when he lost his things. 

It took time - a lot of it - to recognise that this wasn’t going to change and get better. I needed to embrace this.  In my experience it is harder to accept one’s reality, trustingly as it unfolds day after day. But it is more liberating and powerfully transformative (on the inside) to do just that - choose acceptance. My acceptance looked like, staying quiet, saying nothing. Even more when I was accused in the wrong. Things were a lot easier and more bearable as a result.  

Golden days

Looking back, those days were golden. Days I didn’t know were his last, (but partly guessed), for me with him, able to help out when he was needy and helpless and could do little for himself. When he forgot where he was and became anxious and confused. To be able to pray with him. 

He loved saying the rosary, as he would get lost in the decades when he said it himself. To prepare a meal and see that he was happy and like a child again. Those days made the other ones worth it. And even though it seemed like an eternity at the time, looking back now it was just a series of golden moments, a brief span of time.

People had told me that would be the case, but it wasn’t until I experienced it myself that I believed them.

The human touch

None of us are made of that mettle that gets it right all the time, or even half the time. And that’s not what it’s about. I suppose it’s about just being there, and then being able to say sorry, and able to start again somehow, even though we feel a failure, or feel dismal about the whole thing, or feel a victim, or whatever way we feel. 

None of us will become ‘heroic’ in the sense that we will become all things to all; the sick, and old, and vulnerable, and needy people, at all times in all ways. And say all the right things…

What our old and sick and vulnerable need is the human touch, the human being ‘there’ the human presence, the gentle smile, the touch of the hand on the shoulder, or the gesture of affection in putting a warm rug over their knees because it is cold, or offering a hot cup of something, or picking up that thing from the floor for the millionth time or searching for something else that has gone missing or been ‘stolen’ again for the millionth time, or simply just listening to their stories. 

We benefit from caring for our older - and maybe not so older- loved ones. The benefits to us are enormous and uncountable. They flow back to us; more patience, more kindness, more understanding, more virtue. They give the person we are caring for a richness to their lives that otherwise would be missing. The elderly are our promise and our memory at the same time.  

This is Jesus here

One day looking at my dad and looking at what I saw was the whole wretched place,  I decided to imagine to myself that ‘This is Jesus here’ in the house. That became the one thing that helped me manage  in every season, under every challenge, and through almost every difficulty.

And for me- and I know definitely for him too-  being able to do this made the whole experience  richer and more bearable. When I had to curb my impatience because he had lost that thing again - his glasses, or his phone, I would just stop and think ‘Jesus what am I going to do with you, you are always losing things?’  And immediately I would be able to say , ‘Ok I will look for it.’ 

Many times, I would shout this aloud, as I went around the house,

‘Jesus help me, I am doing this for you.’ (My Dad was deaf anyway, so he couldn’t hear me).

And I found I could keep going with good humour, and without getting frustrated. It took time and patience, and a lot of grace to keep on doing it. 

I had changed

Looking back now, I realise that I too had changed with that experience of caring. I too had learned things about myself and about other people.

When my dad left us, one of the things I missed most - apart from him- was this joy that came from doing those things for Jesus.

Was it worth it? Definitely.

Would I do it again? For sure

Was it quick? Like a flash of lightning. (Though not at the time)