Jan. 15, 2003

Comments, Suggestions?

Generations of caring

By Ruth SoRelle, MPH

I had planned to write this column as a tribute to my father, who cared devotedly for my mother during her three or four year bout with Alzheimer’s disease – a saga that ended peacefully and sadly Sept. 13, 2002, with him by her bedside along with two helpless, sobbing daughters. He took a long, dark road with her when it became clear that she was losing the clarity of that brilliant brain that had guided us all for so long.

He enabled her to go down that road with a dignity and a love that is not easily expressed in words. Perhaps it was best expressed in the long silent looks of devotion she gave him when she had, at last, lost the ability to speak.

As I looked back on that time when we lost my mother by bits and pieces, I realized that it would be only half the story to describe the care he gave her. A registered nurse, she was equally devoted to him. When Dad developed advanced head and neck cancer at the age of 57, she was there all the time. It was difficult to get her to leave the hospital for a night’s sleep as he underwent chemotherapy, surgery, radiation and more chemotherapy. When he had his knee replaced, she was there as she was when he developed prostate cancer at age 72. She oversaw his treatment for recurrent hernias and gall bladder removal after that. Even when dementia was overcoming her, she sat by his bedside at The Methodist Hospital while he recovered from bypass surgery. She was 77 and he was 79.

I realized, then, that caring was the norm in my family and in most of those I know. My grandmother cared for my grandfather as he slowly succumbed to emphysema and heart failure. She came when we were sick as did my grandfather, and neither was averse to changing a diaper when a baby needed it. My father’s mother came down from Connecticut to help when my younger sister was born – in a time when travel that far was not the norm.

My mother sat by her father’s bedside in his final days in the hospital and nursed her mother back from brain surgery. When her friend’s mother was dying, my mother was there. When the elderly people in our neighborhood needed help with injected medications, my mother was there. If anyone in the neighborhood became ill in the night, they sought out my mother first.

My sister became a physician, devoting her career to caring for children who were very ill and, for the most part, very poor. She found time to open her heart to a child who had no home, and she is the first we call when anyone in the family becomes ill.

My youngest sister is a teacher. That should be enough said. Even though she was, arguably, the most brilliant of us, she elected to devote her life to conveying knowledge to young people and, also, she hopes, a legacy of caring. There is no higher calling.

My brother – the baby by as much as 19 years – is an artist. He is also the first called when his employees get in trouble. He has traveled hundreds of mile each month to visit his parents, particularly during that time when my mother was sick and my father needed time off.

I took Monday mornings off from work to stay with Mom so Dad could paint with instructors from the Museum of Fine Arts. Those morning breakfasts are some of my fondest memories now. It was time well spent for him and me. My husband took him to University of Houston football games on the weekends, while my sister and I took turns staying with Mom.

When Mom got sick, the entire family rallied round, even though we had children and jobs and troubles of our own. I guess we did it because we cared. Those who cared for her in the health care facility at Bayou Manor went above and beyond in seeing that she was clean, out of pain and loved when we could not be there.

The holy books should have passages devoted to the caregivers, but perhaps they do not because the reward is here on Earth. Blessed are the caregivers because theirs is the satisfaction of knowing they did what they could and they cared for those they loved.

Look around. Look into your own history. In an era when we justifiably spend a lot of time telling people what they should have done, it is easy to overlook the numbers of people who are doing more than their share, who are shouldering the burdens of taking care of those who are ill, who are weak and who are unfortunate. And they are shouldering those burdens with a smile.

You will find examples in your own neighborhood and your own family and even in yourself. I am surrounded by it in the Texas Medical Center where daily, I see medical caregivers going that extra mile. Take a moment to compliment those who are providing care, in whatever setting and to thank them.

Pass on the tradition of care giving by providing an example to your children. Take them with you when you visit a neighbor with a casserole or a plant. There is no prouder moment than when you realize that your children have grown up with an even bigger heart than yours, whether you see them opening their homes to those less fortunate or comforting a friend in despair.

It is a New Year. Perhaps it will be a better one than the one past. It will be if, worldwide, we could just follow the example of the caregivers and try to do our best for everyone.

© Copyright 2003 Baylor College of Medicine. All Rights Reserved. MLE.