Care Giving--Care Receiving

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.
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Carol D. O'Dell, author of Mothering Mother, available at Amazon