39. Whose life is it anyway?

ONE DAY AT A TIME
Meditations for Carers
 
39. Whose life is it anyway?

Isaiah 41.13

Becoming a 24/7 at-home carer involves a lot of changes. Life gets to be pretty well unrecognizable, and as for us – our very identities may be changed. Once we may have been well-paid and valued employees; now we struggle to make ends meet. Once we were happily married; now we don’t get enough sleep and the relationship we once knew has vanished for ever. If we’re caring for a parent, the parent/child relationship and responsibilities have been turned upside down. And a mother may find herself becoming a nurse to her dependent child.

Homes need to be adapted. Once-private finances have to be opened up for those in authority to decide whether or not we qualify for benefits. Expectations have to be down-shifted. Plans have to be put on hold, or shelved permanently, as the future becomes a place we just don’t want to look at. The world seems to have shifted on its axis and then settled down somewhere much less safe.

It’s only now that we realize how much we value the quiet, uneventful life! Oh, for those ‘green pastures and quiet waters by’! That’s not where we are. We’re in the scary bit...


Taken from One Day at a Time: Meditations for Carers by Dorothy M.Stewart