Dear Uncle Bill,I've just retired and I was really looking forward to a time of leisure and travel. Unfortunately, my parents are both frail in their health and need pretty constant attention. If it's not one, it's the other that need a ride or help with this or that. I feel guilty resenting all the time I spend taking care of them, but the fact is, I do. I look after the grand kids on occasion as well and caretaking is feeling like a full time job. I just can't imagine going away for a month on a trip. Help! - Guilty in Grand Rapids
Dear Guilty,
I can imagine the different feelings that you are having. Whew. Well. I do have some suggestions because there are ways of getting help commonly available. These suggestions will require you to reach out into the community, however, in a way that you may not have before.
- Find a caretaker support group. There are many around and about. No matter how it turns out, talking about this tension and hearing other's solutions is helpful. Lots of people are in this situation.
- Consider joining a community. Religious and social institutions often have built in care and visit programs.
- Get home health care for your folks even when it's not a crisis. There are several companies in the area. You could even start by sniffing around for a trusted house cleaner if you or your folks don't have one yet. If your folks are very ill, hospice is a great deal of help. You don't have to be on death's door for this, either.
- Find wonderful, closer travel ideas. Canada! Saratoga! It doesn't have to be a 8 hour plane ride to be interesting. This will keep you around enough to jump if at a crisis. Firmly schedule the trip and work on back ups.
- Get a life. If you don't have things popping in your own life it's extra hard to decline a petition for a little help in someone else's.
- Talk about the guilt thing with the family and people used to talking about complex feelings. Bottled up is not good.
- As your relationship with your parents continues to be redefined, try recovering some of the old joys. I bet you played cards with them in the past. Take them to a political demonstration. Grandkids? what can you all play at? I played gin with a much older aunt of mine when I was in elementary school and it was good fun. She had no mercy.