"No one really expects it, but at some time or another, just about everyone has been --- or will be -- responsible for giving care, for a sustained period, to someone close to them," Gail Sheehy.
There are many things in the book, Passages of Caregiving, that are irrelevant to me as a dementia caregiver; but one of the things most helpful was Sheehy's acknowledgement that the yearning to have our old life back is an illusion. I sometimes think that after Dwane has died, I can have my own life back; but Sheehy points out that one's life is never the same after providing caregiving. We are changed by the experience. So, instead of wanting my old life back, I will focus on the present and what my life will be like when this caregiving is finished. This experience of being dementia caregivers will change us. I want to make sure that it changes me for the better.
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