Wishing you and yours a warm, safe and healthy holiday season but remember: tomorrow is not promised

To all of you who have joined the Keeping it REAL Caregiving family, I would like to take this moment to extend the warmest of holiday wishes 🌠❄️ for you and your family and friends!

It is hard to believe we are quickly approaching the end of 2021 – where does the time go?

Thank you for being part of this journey and our growing tribe of individuals who want to learn, share, grow and impact change within the space of eldercare and family caregiving.

I appreciate all of you for SUBSCRIBING, sharing your personal experiences and offering guidance to others

For this ‘holiday’ edition, I would like to share with you a personal experience which has strengthened a long-held belief of mine about what it means to support family and friends and what it means to deal with grief and loss.

In an odd way, I see it as a holiday gift, because I hope it makes you think about what is important in life.

Saying goodbye to a dear friend

Last week I received an emotionally devastating call. A longtime friend and colleague informed me that another of our close friends was in the hospital, in ICU (Intensive care unit), after suffering what doctors believed was a stroke.

Two days later the medical professionals delivered horrific news to family and friends, saying resulting brain damage was so severe they did not hold out hope of any recovery.

This friend is not an elder, but a vibrant, talented, kind, loving and supportive young woman in the prime of life and career.

Courtesy: Adobe Stock

With minds and hearts reeling, all of her friends (me included) have spent the past several days wondering, ‘How could this happen? Why? Were there any signs? Had she been sick? No! It can’t be! She’s too good of a person! There must be some kind of mistake! She HAS TO pull through! This is a bad dream…’

Sadly, the last seven days have not been a dream, but all too real — our friend passed away Monday afternoon.

My heart is breaking for my friend. For her family. For everyone who knew and worked with her who knows how genuine and kind and sincere she was to everyone she encountered.

Expectations of the third third

As caregivers to elders, I believe there are moments along our journey in which we emotionally brace ourselves for the inevitable. We know the march of time dictates our loved ones are in their final chapters; the ‘third third’ as I like to call it. So we anticipate such loss.

It is NOT supposed to happen in our ‘second third.’ This one hurts.

But like many challenging moments, your writer tends to compartmentalize emotional pain and refocus that energy to figure out ways to learn from the moment.

My holiday wish to you (whichever faith you and family observe and celebrate) is to commit to being MORE KIND to the people in your life and make an effort to spend time with them. In person.

Time moves fast. Nobody knows what is around the next corner. Tomorrow is NOT promised

California at 30K feet

When someone extends an invitation to visit make plans to do so and STOP giving the age-old and LAME excuses of:

  • I don’t have time

  • I can’t afford a plane ticket

  • It’s too far

  • There’s nothing to do where you live

  • I can’t get days off from work

  • I’ll plan something soon….

Blah, blah blah!

*My friend, whose journey has been cut way too short, did not fall into this category. She took time and effort to spend time with those closest to her*

Folks, I’ve heard every excuse in the book and most are just BULL!

Why do we, as a society, tend to value a funeral more than actual time spent with someone? I would love to hear some thoughts on this because it just makes me so very ANGRY and I see it happen so often!

Consider this: how many times do people wait until someone DIES to all of a sudden miraculously manage to take time off from work? All of a sudden they find the money for a plane ticket or hotel stay? All of a sudden they miss their family/friend so much and realize they MUST come say goodbye?

NEWSFLASH: AT THAT POINT IT IS TOO LATE!

…At that point, your person is gone. Sure, you can support family and other friends but the person you claim was so important to you is now gone.

When I helped my mother, Miss Nellie craft her will, she expressed she wanted no type of service or memorial at her passing. Her reasoning? If people had not been in place along the years while she was alive, why bother standing near a casket or urn to mourn?

Presidio National Cemetery, San Francisco

I honored those wishes and I agree with the sentiment 100%. Don’t wait until I’m gone to spend time and tell me how much our friendship or family relation meant to you. Do that while people are alive!

Death is final

Make the effort to connect with your friends and family. Especially if they are an elder. Chances are they can’t come to you and changing their routines is simply too disruptive. If there is a family caregiver involved, offer to help THEM out. Maybe do a massive food shopping trip. Help clean the house. Tackle overdue errands.

And here’s a novel idea? What about just simply sitting and talking and visiting with your loved one or friend?! That gesture can go a long way.

DO NOT WAIT until someone passes to make plans to visit!

Be kind to those in your life!

Reflect on who and what is important to you in your life and then devote time and energy to only that which is nourishing.

Let go of the rest.

Tomorrow is not promised.

J

*********

News from around the web – It appears scrooge is alive and well this holiday season. KIRC recently talked about ‘Affordable Aging’ and housing insecurity was mentioned as a real threat to many elders.

Check out this story from Durham, North Carolina – it is an ongoing issue of housing, property ownership and a situation of possibly evicting people in the midst of the holiday season. Another reason we must all pay attention to the well-being of our elders.

✨🎇🌠❄️✨🎇🌠❄️✨

*Header Image Courtesy: Adobe Stock/Premier

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