I visited my mom in her care home today, my imaginary friend. A resident sitting next to her was attempting to articulate a want or need, and after a few minutes of seeing her quiet agitation at being unable to communicate, I went to find a care aide to ask her to help the resident. Forty-five minutes later when I left, no one had come to check on the person. Me, I found it excruciating to leave my mom behind in this putative care. It was gut-wrenching, awful, and felt wrong.
It is hard not to be judgmental, for during those 45 minutes the care aide was not busy, but rather desultorily cleaning up dirty dishes. Where to start? The residents here are extremely vulnerable: many of them in wheelchairs, and restrained in those wheelchairs, most of them with dementia, some unable to clearly speak their needs, and with varying degrees of confusion. Could it possibly be appropriate to prioritize cleaning up dishes over spending a moment with a resident? Of course, not all of the staff exhibit this level of indifference – earlier another staff member offered someone juice and a cookie, and chatted with her to ease her confusion and disorientation. But perhaps the point is that those residents today, including my mom, are left for the next 7 hours or so with indifference.
As a society we have only begun to grapple with these issues in long term care; care aides are expected to do too much, with too few of them available, and with mediocre wages for what is difficult and emotionally demanding work. It seems we have focused efforts on the mechanics of the situation – increasing wages, recruiting, hiring, and training more care aides – without figuring out how to measure what seems absolutely indispensable to the job, which is caring.
My mom is often told by staff that she is at home, but at a deep level she understands this is not true. Home is not a place of perfection, or a place of fictionalized, sentimentalized happy people laughing and playing games. Home is messy, has good days and bad days, joys, sorrows, arguments, and laughter – home has many aspects. Caring, rather than care, is what ought to define home.
For the sake of my mom and your mom and somebody’s husband, sister, life-long friend – for the sake of all those who cannot care for themselves or speak for themselves, we must get this right. How will we live with ourselves otherwise?
Me, and my imaginary friend 
How, indeed. I am so happy we are back in Hawaii, where people genuinely take care of one another, respect and care for their elders, respect and listen to the little ones too. I hope you find a solution to your local problem, because it seems the issue is too immense to do anything but what’s right in front of us. Blessings, VL. 🙏♥️
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I have never been to Hawaii, Bela, but I am happy you are back in a place that sounds…human. Humane, even. It is true, the issues seem immense, and I often despair. Perhaps, though, the many challenges our societies face have a core problem…Respect, listening, and caring are a good starting point. I wish you the best, my friend – and maybe in happier days I will visit your lovely islands. There’s a little dream of paradise to help sustain me!
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Mahalo, VL! We have lived in this community for over 20 years now, with a four year break to see if we could live on the mainland US again to be nearer to the kids and such. Turns out we couldn’t. This is a very unique, community-centered place where people genuinely show care for one another on a daily basis. I can’t say that’s true in general about anywhere in the mainland US, especially now. Take care! ♥️
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You take care too, Bela.
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This is heart wrenching! I was very blessed to not go through that with my parents but we did have to put my mother in law in a home. She had dementia, it was hard! But and it is a big but, the place she went was built like a home and they only took about 10 patients.
She was very comfortable there after a brief time. They had a big couch to watch a giant screen tv complete with a big roll around popcorn maker. They had parties and all were treated well, that we saw.
I wish for your mom, that kind of place Viv. Yes people need to speak up for those that can’t. Sending prayers and hope my friend.
Tammy
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Thank you, my friend. I visit my mom everyday, and work on improving things. Though I wish I did not have to do that.
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