We've now turned the words "Care Giver" into a compound word.
Caregiver or caregiving is now written as one word.
Two words smeared together. Apropos. Two lives smeared together.
A Jackson Pollack painting is a great metaphor for Alzheimer's--layers of chaos--some beautiful, others haunting.
I wrote in my book, MOTHERING MOTHER that I thought that caregiving was such a sterile term. Mother has bonded well with her child makes me want to ask if bail has been posted.
I used to teach my daughters that family was an acronym for "Father and Mother, I Love You." It sounded really sweet when they were four and five years old.... Now they roll their eyes and give me a smirk.
Now I have a new word--Care Receiver.It's a two-worder. It looks funny as one word:Carereceiver. Care-receiver.
I prefer, "Loved One."
I'd like to be referred to as the loved one--the one who is loved.
Giving and receiving are reciprocal terms.Someone smiles, the other tears...or just sighs.
m
Carol D. O'Dell, author of Mothering Mother, available at Amazon
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2 comments:
Thank you so much for stopping by my blog. One of the reasons I wrote my last post was to help people understand how critically important the proper caregiving can be for those of us who are ill before our time and also because people are living longer and more and more adults are faced with caring for their parents. I thought it important to state the point of view of a person on the receiving end. You already know about the giving end.
Our caregivers hold our lives in their hands and it takes special people to be angels of mercy. I think it is more difficult in the case of Alzheimer's because of the loss of memory and rational thought and I wish you well as you tend to your mother's needs.
Thank you for stopping by my blog and i just left you a comment there.
It sounds like I could learn a lot from you. i am being whiny and i feel selfish and it is coming from frustration and we haven't had a close relationship since i was a little girl and so there is a lot of "stuff" in the mix complicating things.
I am also afraid of losing her. I love my mother.
I like your post and i agree with you about loved one being preferable. :)
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