Caregivers

February 9th,2025

I know an elderly woman who was the primary caregiver for her son. Her son suffered from cerebral palsy and paralysis. The young man was often in pain. Yet, he was an artist and apparently a warm, loving individual. This woman took care of her child for decades. Her life revolved around her boy, even when he was grown up. From what she told me, looking after him was sometimes extraordinarily difficult, but also extremely rewarding. She has no regrets about spending so much of her life serving him. She is sad, but only because her son is dead, and she misses him.

I know a couple from the synagogue that I used to attend. They are quite old now, and they spent years caring for their son. Their boy was born about the same time that I was. When I was a helicopter pilot in West Germany in the early 1980’s, their son was an officer in the Soviet Army fighting in Afghanistan. He came back from his war severely wounded and deeply traumatized. The man was a brilliant engineer, but he became an alcoholic who could function only part of the time. As the years went by, his parents spent more and more of their time and money helping him. They would stay with him for months on end, and they were always worried about him having a relapse and ending up in a hospital. They buried their son two years ago. Their only regret is that they couldn’t do more for him. Until the very end, they had hoped he would heal and be well.

I have a friend who is caring for his father. His dad has Alzheimer’s disease, and my friend goes to his parents’ house twice a day to help his mom get his father in and out of bed. The father has increasing difficulty with speech and movement. My friend sees the gradual deterioration in his dad, and it grieves him. He insists on being there for his father, even when it is inconvenient or stressful. He won’t abandon him.

Being a caregiver in our society is common but somehow abnormal. We live in a culture which is relentlessly transactional. The basic question in almost all of our affairs is: “What’s in it for me?” Unless a person is a professional caregiver, like a nurse, there is no tangible reward for helping another person on a continuing basis. Sometimes, the person receiving the care gets well and that can be gratifying. However, often the person who needs the help has a chronic or debilitating condition, and they don’t get better. However, as you can tell from my previous examples, there are people willing to be of service for extended periods of time.

My wife and I are fulltime caregivers for our four-year-old grandson, Asher. We have been in that role since he came home from the hospital’s NICU as an infant. Like many other caregivers, we are watching over our charge 24/7/365. I have had a number of people look at me, shake their heads, and say,

“I couldn’t do what you do. I don’t know how you do it.”

Honestly, I don’t how I do what I do, but I still do it. I firmly believe that nobody knows what they can do for another person until they are confronted with that challenge. Some people can’t be caregivers and some people won’t. Like the other folks I have mentioned, my wife and I chose to care for Asher, and we continue to make that choice.

Is it hard? Hell yeah.

So, why do it?

We do it out of love. That answer probably explains nothing, but that is the only answer. Love is hard to describe. It is not rational. It is not self-serving. It is mysterious and it is powerful, perhaps the most powerful thing in the universe.