Posts Tagged ‘older adults’

It’s summer–vacation season.  You have your reservations at the beach, you are scheduled to hit the road in a couple of hours, and are zipping the last compartment on your luggage when you get the call. It’s your father.  There’s nothing wrong, he says, but your trained ear detects that all is not right either.  It’s a three hour drive to where he lives in the opposite direction from your vacation destination.  Your brow starts to furrow.  What can you do?  What should you do?  Mentally you scan for options, then you tear downstairs to bow before the internet idol for answers.

That’s how lots of people have found SCC.  If there is one thing that adult children of older adults can count on, it is that the need to intervene on behalf of your parents will come.  Just when it will come is the unpredictable part.  Even though I am a well seasoned, well educated, fairly insightful, not to mention professional, geriatric care manager, I too have been blindsided by events like the scenario above. Fortunately, I do know what resources or support services I have to rely on should I get the call from my own mother.

Most of the folks that visit the SCC website are caregivers.  Most do not do caregiving for a living.  More often than not they are family members who live a good distance from the older adult for whom they are seeking help.  I hope that when a stressed family member lands on the SCC site, they breathe an instant sigh of relief.  Blog page readers can be part of a much needed support system.  By commenting and adding your thoughts, success stories, and challenges, the caregiving “safety net” spreads and becomes stronger.

Take a moment to consider and share what situations you either have had to deal with in the past or ones that you hold in the back of your mind that could be front and center at any moment.  Maybe doing so will help all of us be able to head off to our much needed vacations with a little less stress and enjoy them a lot more!

Wishing you a wonderful vacation season,
Connie

Take Time to Listen

Do you love a good story? I do. One of the things I love most about working with older adults is listening to their stories. One gentleman told me about being stationed in South Korea just after WWII where he fell in love with a Korean woman. He didn’t say he was “in love” but I knew by watching his eyes while he spoke and seeing the slight smile that came to his face as he spoke her name and recounted the things they had done together. For a few moments it was as if he left the present and was transported back there. For a few moments, I too, was transported. The spell was broken when he had to also tell me about the realities of the “red-tape” that kept him from being able to marry the woman and bring her to the States. The hurt in his eyes was as real as the love.

So why am I sharing this with you now? Because the rest of this gentleman’s story was about how he coped with this life challenge. Though saddened, he was not destroyed. The memory ultimately became one that evoked pleasant feelings. The story I heard was one of resilience. It reminded me of a phrase I used to hear from an older, wiser mentor. She would say, “It’s not so much what happens to you [that matters], it’s how you cope with it.”

If we listen, we can learn a lot about coping, resilience, and how to see isolated life events as threads, each necessary to weave the finished tapestry. So, I encourage you to take some time to listen, really listen, and to learn.