Professional caregivers make a difference in their client’s lives every day they perform their duties. They all have a wide range of tasks and duties, from feeding, administration of emotional support to transportation and house cleaning. They provide clients with love and assistance in ways that allow them to stay in their homes to support their mental health.
From the caregiver’s perspective, the upheaval of regular life motions is a mutual concept. While they’re bathing and grooming their patients with unconditional kindness and compassion, their own lives are being impacted in positive ways.
Anna’s Story
Since Anna Wolfe was a child, she dreamt of being a nurse. She had a great relationship with her parents until her father passed away when she was 9. From then on, her relationship with her mother struggled.
More motivated than ever, Anna worked hard throughout high school and well into college, receiving scholarships that helped pave the way to her dream. She eventually would get a job as an in-home caregiver.
Caring for Olivia
In her 5th year as a caregiver, she was assigned to care for an 86-year-old ex-administrative assistant named Olivia. She had spent her working years behind a desk, never having taken a vacation with her family.
Olivia couldn’t care for herself the same anymore, even with the help of her 63-year-old daughter, Sarah. Olivia was set in her ways. Sarah recounted how her mother had always been stern and their relationship was tense. She only began seeing her mother again when she became too ill to care for herself.
Hard-working Anna took fantastic care of Olivia and watched her slow decline. Despite their strenuous lives together, Sarah never left her side. She never treated her mother with anything short of unconditional love. When Olivia passed, Sarah was grief-stricken and expressed to Anna how she wished she could have those years back.
The Life-Changing Realization
Anna had worked hard all her life, never looking back at her childhood trauma. Not once did she shift her focus to try healing from the physical loss of her father or the emotional loss of her mother. Until now, she never considered how her mother felt. All she knew was work, catering to her patients, and performing to the best of her ability.
After her shift that day, Anna went home and sat silently considering the moments she missed out on with her mother. The trips not taken, the conversations that never happened, and the reconciliation they both deserved.
She called her mother and they talked for hours. Apologizing to one another, laughing, sobbing, and talking about the future. Anna and her mother took trips, shared memories, and loved each other from that day forward, never missing a beat in each other’s lives.
Final Thoughts
Caring for Olivia changed Anna’s life. Olivia and Sarah showed her that life was too short to stay distant from her mother. They both deserved a friend, a relationship, and a life of fun and memories – and that’s just what they had.
