Giving Care
Last night I downloaded a new photo organizer called "Picasa." It's a great program and it's free, so I recommend it.
However, that plug is not the reason for this post. While installing "Picasa" it went through my computer and found every picture that I'd ever saved and then neatly organized them for my review. Occassionally I've accidently saved pictures to a folder that had nothing to do with my photo archives. When that happened the picture became utterly lost, and so it was with this picture that I've entitled "Giving Care."
My stories are passed around and that's just wonderful by me. They float out like a bottle on the ocean and only rarely do they come back with a note stuffed inside. When they do it's a treat, and this picture was attached to one of those notes.
Some years ago a woman, whose name I now forget, sent a comment and identified herself as a care giver for an elderly woman. She included this photograph and said it was the only recent picture she had of herself.
I remember being taken by it. I've never seen a photograph that told a more touching and affectionate story than this snapshot. It distills the grace and the glory of love between two people in a way that makes even well chosen words seem clumsy and insufficent.
It was a gift to have this picture returned to me from right under my nose. If the woman who sent it finds her way to this web site, I'd love to hear from her once again.
posted by George Pence @ 8:12 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Thanks for visiting my blog. I think this picture is a beautiful image of the love between a caregiver and the elderly.
I agree, it would be nice if the woman in the picture contacted you with an update.
A few years ago, I had to have a difficult conversation with my mother about her making a living will. Her health had deteriorated radically from shingles of the throat that left her tiny and frail and small. She was already suffering from emphysema and severe osteoarthritis and still smoking like a chimney.
The first time I attempted to address the topic, she said that I was trying to take over and control her life and to stop it. My intent was hardly that. I actually wanted to give her as much control over events about the end of her life as possible. I had no certainty that other family members would carry out her wishes that she had expressed to me and other family on many occasions.
Her wishes were simple: No life support, no one present, immediate cremation.
We've gotten to a happier place since then and here's how it happened. I sought the counsel of an eldercare advisor. We never met in person and spoke only over the phone. She gave me the words and approach to use to talk with my mother. I called her my angel. I headed home to my parents'for a holiday, feeling better prepared to broach the subject again.
But someone else had intervened. My sister-in-law is a teacher. The previous week when she and my brother had gone home to visit, she'd taken a children's book for my mother to read called 'I'll Love You Forever,' written by Robert Munch. To this day, I have never understood why she selected that book for my mother. All she told me was that her second graders loved the story and found it to be amazingly funny.
I arrived home. My step-father was golfing. My mother and I sat in the garden for a few minutes as I recovered from the long drive I'd had......over 250 miles.
Suddenly she looked intently at me and said, "I have a book I need you to read to me." She took me into her bedroom, her pink room I had newly decorated for her the previous year, and we sat on her bed together to read. The story begins with a mother holding her son in her arms and her whispering to him," I'll love you forever." By the third page, I knew what the ending would be. I put my arm around my mother. I could barely speak. But I managed to say,"Mom, I can't read out loud anymore but we will read each page together."
Of course, on the final page of the book, the son is holding his mother in his arms as he whispers, "I'll love you forever."
I closed the book and gathered my mother in my arms and we cried. And I told her I would keep my promise to her. Shortly after that, she completed her living will. But the experience was far more profound for us. We haven't had to have a difficult conversation since then and we finally have just been able to love each other unconditionally.
And that's what your picture said to me today. It's a portrait of unconditional love.
How wonderful and how beautiful.
Thank you, George and thank you to the beautiful woman who sent you the wonderful photograph. Anne
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