2008 “Give a Caregiver a Break” RUNNER-UP: Catherine
"Our Casa del Campo"
"I've been kidnapped!"
The first passenger just got on the bus.
"Where are my glasses?"
Passenger Number Two.
Our names are Catherine and Peter, and we are the grateful caregivers of our mothers, Celestine (who uttered the first ominous declaration) and Rita (with the more subdued inquiry). Celestine is Peter's mom. At 86, she arrived on Valentine's Day, 2006. She had not been on an airplane in over 50 years, and had never been west of Rochester, New York. Parkinson's dementia conveniently precluded her understanding why she was now in California. Her world had just changed, forever. My mom, Rita, a veteran of more than a decade of residential living in senior apartments in the Bay Area, came to us just prior to Mother's Day in 2007, bruised and disoriented from a nasty fall, declining, dwindling. At 83, challenged by late-stage osteoporosis and its related complications, she was weak and fading. Her world had just changed, forever.
Both of these wonderful ladies live with us in our country home, lovingly nicknamed Casa del Campo. Our world has changed, forever. It is difficult to put into so few words how all our lives have intertwined these past several years: the laughter and silliness balanced by the deterioration and neediness; the warmth and satisfaction, balanced by the bewilderment and disorientation; frustration, anger and hopelessness, balanced by serenity, love and faith. The agony and the ecstasy: the opportunity for learning, growing, and healing. For our mothers, the opportunity to move to a place of acceptance and inner peace; for us, theopportunity to heal old wounds, to make amends to ourselves for stuff we have held onto for too, too long; for us all, to spend time in forgiveness, and in love, and in family. Moments far from easy or pleasant, experiencing breakdowns in our patience as we witness breakdowns of a more permanent kind, allowing us to grow, to be resilient, to move towards that place of service: not to help,not to fix, but to serve. The tough things: relieving ourselves of expectations, resisting the urges to scold, as we were scolded; to criticize, as we were criticized; to withhold, as we were withheld from. Motive and opportunity present themselves to settle those old scores; and yet, we resist; we see the gift of grace, of taking the higher road, of our opportunity to heal our old wounds, to forgive those who have no memory of those old hurts; to forgive ourselves. Celestine is still kidnapped (although not so often) and Rita still is looking for those glasses (the ones on her lap) and the wheels of our bus go round and round, and we end each day saying thank you, thank you, thank you, for this chance to look at life from both sides, now.
—Catherine Perkins, GrassValley, CA
Winner of $500 in free respite care
From Home Instead Senior Care
Cares for mother, Rita, and mother-in-law Celestine