Care For Caregivers

My grandmother had a huge influence on me: her unconditional love filled my heart: from her. I learned about music, gardening, cooking and more. Mammy, as I called her, was a retired stock broker with many elderly clients. She would make boiled custard and put it in a quart glass bottle. With this she would take a bouquet of exhibition roses to take with us. Then we would go to the nursing homes where the clients lived. I would stand at the foot of the patients bed and sing.On one of these visits, the woman cried. This upset me that I had made her cry, until my grandmother explained that they were tears of joy. I didn't know that you could cry from happiness.I think it was a combination of my grandmother's example and my love for her that made me go into the field of gerontology. Mammy's last seven years were spent in a nursing home. She had fallen and broken her hip. However, she was so crippled by arthritis that they couldn't mend it. So she was lifted from the bed to the chair and back everyday. She never left her room.Although I visited her as often as possible, bringing my three to sing to her, I was deeply affected and disheartened by her "incarceration".Several years ago, I gave a talk entitled ' Caring for Caregivers' for the women's club at The Chautauqua Institution. It is the oldest one in the country. It was very well attended. They later told me that it was the largest crowd they had ever had in over one hundred years! I was so moved that as I walked the half mile back to my lodging, I thought up a poem. Then I created another, and another, until in a few days I had ten. I didn't plan to do this, they just came to me. Over the years I have written over fifty to be shared with others who are caregivers themselves. I am now a caregiver too, caring for my ninety two year old husband. We have a blended family and have been married for over forty one years.I think that these little poems will strike a chord with people who are caring for a loved one whether they are adult children or a spouse. The demands and pressures are the same. This book is a must-have for any person who is receiving care from a caregiver, or is a caregiver themselves. Judith's poems speak from the heart.