The "Primary Caregiver"



2023 04 16 - it is raining, a cold, wet morning. We are all late getting started this morning. No reason to rush. Just take our time mobilizing our efforts for the day.


The dog is snoring gently on the couch beside me. I can hear Mom sleeping in her room. The rain spatters outside.

This is the story of unpaid family caregiving. This is the story of bringing Mom home after her increasing frailty meant she could no longer continue living in her mental health group home. This is the story of family rising to the occasion of providing for Mom's health and well-being as we journey through the last chapters of her long, well-lived, life.

This is the story of mental illness and a family who decided it was not a willful defect of Mom's character or a moral failing. It is the story of a family embracing Mom's mental illness and bringing her home instead of putting her into another institution. It is the story of thinking about mental illness and age-related cognitive failure as no different than arthritis, diabetes, digestive upsets or other body system disease processes.

This is the story of my mom's unfailing good cheer, her commitment to her family, and her unstoppable desire to help her family build strength through adversity.

In this story we can ask, "Who is the caregiver?", "What is caregiving?", and "What does it mean to be an unpaid family caregiver?". 

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