I am leaving in a while to help bury a friend. It will be an opportunity to – finally – care for a woman who spent most of her life caring for others. All of us who will gather at the graveside have stories of Judy taking care of us. And all of us wish she had let us take better care of her.
Judy always found time to help out. She raised two daughters, one with multiple challenges, cared for her grandson and helped her friends and neighbors while caring for her increasingly difficult-to-manage blind and deaf mother.
Judy was the consummate caregiver. Once, a neighbor asked her to feed her cat for a couple of days. The cat owner disappeared for about a month and Judy never complained about buying premium food for this pampered pet or having no idea when the owner might return.
Judy would watch your children, accept your packages, check your mail, loan you anything she possessed. She let me borrow her computer so I could take files off of mine when the monitor failed.
Judy fed my cat whenever I was out of town. Although she was allergic and asthmatic, she sat with him, talked to him, petted him so he wouldn’t feel lonely. She medicated him when he was ill and monitored his intake and output better than I did.
Finally, it seemed that all this caregiving took a toll. Always a depressive, Judy became more withdrawn. She stopped wanting to get out of bed in the morning. She stopped eating. She had always been all but invisible outside of the world of those she helped. Now, she was shrinking away.
We won’t know for weeks – maybe months – the medical reasons for Judy’s death. We all have our private theories. It felt like she was just used up.
So, this is a cautionary tale. If you are a caregiver, create a small circle of people who will care for you – AND LET THEM! Sometimes givers do not know how to accept. They don’t recognize that accepting is also a great gift. If you are a caregiver, remember that it’s OK for you to ask. People are eager to answer with whatever you need. Let those you give to help you grow and flourish.
If you know a caregiver, thank them today. Thank them every day. Help them care for themselves. Do it now, before they shrink out of sight.
We will lovingly tuck Judy into her final resting place in a few hours, doing what we still can do, wishing we had done more. We will try to honor her memory by being a little more giving. And it will take a long time to heal the holes in our hearts.
