(1017) Care giver

Being the chief care giver of old folks is by no means an easy task. Through the years I kept an ear out to pick up the detail development of my husband's alumna in a neighbouring country. When my youngest child was a month old, she came to visit us. At that point of time, she was young and had a personable nature. Through the years, the wears and tears of bearing the burdens of caring for her parents affected her adversely.

She became paranoid. Just to illustrate how far she has changed: while travelling overseas she carried two bunches of keys. One came from the locks of her home and office consisting of about twenty over individual keys. The other came from the locks of her various pieces of luggage. That alone already departed from the norm. The strange part came when different room mates (who were other alumnae) all said that she actually carried every piece of her personal belongings, including all the suitcases, into the bathroom when she showered.

She is still single and holds quite a good job. Instead of being grateful for her years of sacrificial care given to both parents, each one of her siblings seemed to find fault with her instead. I thought that was an isolated incident, sad... but life can be tough.

Lately another of my husband's contact, through business, seemed to walk in the alumna's footsteps. This contact's mom is still alive. She exhibited symptoms of not only paranoia, I would hazard to guess that she was slightly bi-polar. Over the care of her deceased dad, she fought with every one of her siblings in turn. She lived in a love-hate relationship with her mom. She claimed unknown parties broke into her office and wrecked her personal car. It became increasingly difficult to believe what she said. Yet obviously there must be real stress and fault lines leading to her erratic behaviour.

Nobody wants to send his or her parent to an old folks home. Yet very often the unmarried daughter ended up caring for one or both parents until death. It is not exactly ideal and it often exacts a certain undesired cost on the person involved.