Thank you. I spent 20 years caring for my husband before his death in 2015. I have a dear friend who's husband passed the year before that put in 15 years of the same. She made me promise that I'll marry the next one healthy, but at our age we know that's not going to be possible. Regardless of who he is I'll likely outlive him and end up caring for him in the same tender way I tended to Dale.
When we give birth the intent is never there that we'll be a burden for our children. Haha! I used to joke with my son that he was my pension plan, until the day he turned to me, all serious, and said "You need to get over that idea."Haven't heard hide nor hare of him in three years now. The silly boy never really understood his mother. His loss, but mine too. They have the grandchildren I may never lay eyes on again.
Families..... an ongoing lesson for what unconditional loving really is, not what we describe in our pretty words. It's being there when it matters, even if we don't want to be.
In all seriousness Sue, I don't know how you women, and some men too.....can find the strength to be caretakers. Ms Stank had a brother that died of cancer, a very ugly death and she was a caretaker to him for a while. She said it was very tough but also very rewarding. I don't have it in me. Its a different kind of toughness. I had an ex uncle in law, a spitting image for Iron Mike Ditka. He was all man, rugged, strong, a leader, compassionate....really just a great role model for a man. He got some sort of cancer, prostate or something, and I watched what that did to him over a two year period. I remember seeing him the night before died. He chose to live his final couple weeks in his house. They needed help moving him from one room to another. So I hadn't seen him for a couple months and I walked in and looked at the shell of the man that laying there. Broke me down completely. I helped move him, gave him a hug and I had to leave. I couldn't handle looking a man I respected and viewed as a role model that had decayed to what he had become. I don't cry often, but I was in tears as I sat outside. It was too much for me to take. Where you find the strength to do that, I will never know.
I have seen a lot of bad things in my life. I have seen vehicles blown up by IEDs and people I know blown apart. I have seen people shot, stabbed, and killed. I can handle all those things. I can't handle the stuff you caretakers see. Its truly a different kind of strength and it leaves me in awe really. Perhaps if was a child of mine, it might be different. I think parents are able to deal with more in general.
It killed me to see my dad for the first time after his heart attack and stroke. He couldn't walk on his own and needed a walker (this was several months after the recovery began and he refused to have us see him while he was in the hospital). He could barely speak in a manner that understandable. It crushed me to see him like that. He has since fully recovered thankfully, he is stubborn ox of a man. But that was an image of him I struggled with seeing. Women are certainly much stronger at dealing with these sorts of things than men are (in general...I know there are some men out there that fall into that caretaker category), certainly much stronger than me.
Confirmation of our previous discussion too. Nice that we're all correct. Lol!
But I love her anyway
