How to help?

My father, soon after a visit from the angels.
 I have not seen him so collected and relaxed in a long time. 

Not long ago a dear friend went through the worst experience a mother can ever face: the terminal illness and death of a child. It came too close for comfort and I was terrified for her sake and my own. I did not know how to help so I shied away. I felt my words would be useless as comfort and my visits inappropriate or awkward.
     How to help? Going through this difficult time with my father, I find that our friends and family experience the same feelings of uselessness. I do not have a ready answer. Maybe one could ask: what is needed and see what one’s own circumstances allow you to offer.
     In our close family circle we have members living very far away. They help financially and also manage my father’s finances. They keep encouraging us and try to look for a solution with us. They offer their opinions and concerns honestly and earnestly. Their calls and short chats with my father give his day meaning even if he can hardly communicate on bad days.
     My sister living closer goes to great lengths to organize her hectic schedule with three children and social commitments to visit and help out for a couple of days. She makes the calls, does the research and does the shopping I don’t get round to.
     I know they feel they’re not doing enough. In a way, my decision to bring my father home and embark on a quest to see if we could bring him back to life has put them under a lot of strain. In a way we had no choice. His depression was getting out of control and the only other option seemed to be a chemical straight jacket, as the psychiatrist calls it. But it was easier when he was cared for in the frail care center. We all had more or less equal responsibility then.
     It helps to know that they care enough to feel the responsibility and that they support us even if they would not have done it this way. In the end it is our self chosen trial and they can only do what they can.
But it is important to realize that even just a call lightens our burden while also brightening the day with a few minutes of relating your much more interesting day. For my father it can and does make all the difference. The biggest problem of the very frail elderly is how to get through the days. With not much mobility and very little energy or focus, the days and often the nights are unbearably long.
     It is seldom that you get people brave and bold enough to offer help the way our friends Elmi and Madeleen did over the past weekend. They came to visit with the sole purpose of taking over care of my father for a night and a day in order for us to get a break. With him being totally dependent on others for seeing to his most basic bodily functions, it was no mean feat. That they have had the experience of caring for their own frail parents made all the difference. They could put my father at ease with their confident and matter of fact way of handling him and he quite enjoyed all the female attention, if you ask me.
     They found his singing and playing the mouth organ along with his music cd’s deep into the night very endearing. They could also offer valuable insights and advice from their viewpoint that will help in our future handling of my father. Angels could not have done a more perfect job.
     How to help? In retrospect of my friend’s and my own crisis, I would say try to put yourself into the situation and see what stands out to you as a need or problem. The chances are that it will be in that regard that you might be able to offer assistance. I truly believe that we are all equipped by life to offer exactly what will be needed if we are living with awareness and empathy.
     Maybe now only can I be of real help to someone going through a similar difficult time. If it was me I would have wanted a haven where I did not have to be strong and in control. Where for a while, I could safely crumble.

Matilda