This
week I have been contemplating whether I believe caregiving to be a pragmatic
act. Wayne has been described to me as both a caregiver and as a pragmatist and
I keep wondering to myself how well those two things go together.
The
more I have reflected on caregiving as a practice, the more uneasy I am with
defining it as an act of practicality. Sure, there is an element of
essentialism to it; someone must help others do for themselves what they
cannot, but in the most traditional of terms there does seem to be a lack of
productivity in caregiving which easily challenges its practicality.
Take
for instance the many stories we know about people to whom we have given our
time, resources, and sage advice only to watch them continue down roads of self-destruction
and external blame. Or the people for whom we have spent countless hours
arranging doctor’s appointments, researching medical conditions online, and
filling prescription after prescription only to realize this illness, this
disease, this diagnoses is here to stay.
In
our lives, we learn quickly that caregiving is not an act which often produces
remarkable results. Experiencing this many of us cut our losses. We set strong
boundaries investing our acts of care in only those individuals which show the
most promise of being successful recipients of such a priceless product. The
leftovers of this group, the ones who don’t ever seem to catch on or give up,
well they are the people we call caregivers.
Perhaps,
for Wayne, it was not a choice at all but an identity he was born with, an
identity innate to his very being. A shepherd to the lost, lonely, the broken
and the misunderstood. This seems to be Wayne’s DNA. And, being that caregiving was his given identity, the things he did came from a
place of Love without any expectation of changing the person receiving care.
Motivated by love, the goal becomes not to transform one individual but to grow
connection in the space between.
If
it were caregiving out of obligation it would be practical; but it was out of
love and that is extravagant. There is something utterly extravagant about the
act of giving care. A generosity poured out and rarely returned. An investment
that we know has little material return.
Caregivers
make every place feel like home. Their presence is the room we need to breath,
Wayne
seems to know what was important and what wasn’t and that is something that we
all need a lesson in these days where our time is swallowed up – Caregiving
-People know what matters- that they were loved.
The
gift he gave us, the peace we are left with is having known that we were worthy
of that care Loving people can make you very practical because it helps you
realize what is important and what is not. To know we are loved, to know we are
worthy of care, is the only thing that matters. And in that regard it is the
most practical gift we can hope to receive and so too the only gift we give
that matters.
