A new season of my life… I am now working part-time as an in-home caregiver for a company that helps the elderly (or other people in need of such care) stay in their homes as they age.

This experience has been very eye-opening to me. It’s a reminder of the other end of the “pro-life” spectrum.

It has made me ashamed for all of the people who have said, “If I ever get like that, just shoot me.” or “I want to remember them as they were when they were young.” These people in this stage of life are just as precious to God as they were at 5 or 20 or 30 or while in the womb. They often need the same kind of care as a baby – being fed and changed and read to and pushed in a stroller. The baby is selfish and demanding sometimes. They nap and often doesn’t sleep through the night. The baby can’t communicate or understand our conversation, but the attention is appreciated. And that babyhood stage is precious to God, too. He said we need to take care of our elder family, because they need care and we are repaying them for the care they gave us as children.

It’s really a very good job. It suits me.  I have worked with five clients so far. One of them just needed a ride to the city, to see her doctor, but the others are regular clients. Sometimes I simply give them their medications. Sometimes I clean house. Sometimes I transport them to the hairdresser, doctor, bank and other appointments.  One client requires much more physical care, because she is in very poor health: multiple strokes, heart surgeries and pacemakers, artificial hips, dementia, partial blindness… I lift her from bed to chair to toilet and back again, preparing meals and helping her to eat, cleaning house, and providing companionship even when she barely knows I am there. I think she recognizes me even when she can’t remember my name, and sometimes she surprises me by carrying on short, sensible conversations. And this woman, in this stage of her life, is exactly where God wants her. He loves her and values her here and now just as much as he does the newborn infant.

Sometimes, I worry more about the other people who live with the main client. The 93 year old husband of the lady described above causes me more stress than his wife. He totters around with vertigo, but he still drives. His health is even more precarious than hers, and at least she is always sitting down! I worry about him falling. I think he hangs on because he knows his wife will only be kept in such good care as long as he is alive to insist upon it. The rest of the family lives far away and is impatient of Dad’s insistence on remaining at home and keeping Mom there, too.

Most of the clients are wealthy enough to pay for this kind of care, but some are community health cases. One is a mentally handicapped man whose medication has to be doled out twice a day from a locked box. I worry more about his very elderly, frail mother who takes care of him to the best of her ability.

So many people don’t need to be warehoused in nursing homes or group homes, but they can’t do everything on their own. A little help makes it possible for them to live out their lives in dignity, in their homes, in comfort. Sometimes they just need to see a friendly face and have their dishes washed or their trash taken out. Lightbulbs replaced. Groceries picked up.  Their glasses cleaned or their hair washed. Laundry. Sweeping the floor. Changing the bedsheets. Maybe they would like to have their toenails painted or need help addressing Christmas cards. Getting out the autumn table linens.

God loves them NOW, just as they are, no less than when they were babies or children or younger adults. We shouldn’t just value and respect our elders while they are still cogent and relatively mobile. It goes beyond that. As long as God gives them life, that life is precious and should be preserved. He will decide when it’s over.  For now, they are truly alive.

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