I love coming home and sharing stories about my day at work with my partner. I am a support worker with elderly, disabled and seriously ill clients. I give their full-time, unpaid carer a short break by looking after their loved one for a few hours.
“You’ll never guess what I did today with my new client ...” I beamed, eager to share my newest excursion.
“You played cards?”
It was a fair guess: I do a fair bit of cards and board games with clients.
“No, it was far more interesting than that. We went to the pub and played snooker, and he had a pint!”
“Are you serious? Did you have a pint too?” he asked, laughing.
“Of course not! I’m supposed to be looking after him, not the other way around.”
I shared further stories with him about my outings with clients: walks through the park; shopping for food, or the perfect hat for that next wedding invitation; visiting farms; watching the gliders come and go at local airfields; feeding the ducks at the lake; quiet days indoors when the weather wasn’t ideal.
I learned to appreciate jazz and classical music. I was reacquainted with the art of crochet and knitting. I heard many stories about the war: memories of being evacuated as children; the difficulties of rationing, of drinking boiled grass as broth when the larder was bare and the cat that saved a family of four from just such a meal by bringing home a freshly caught rabbit. I would write these stories down in their diaries and, when their memories started to falter, I would read the stories back to them. What a delight to see the recollection in their eyes as they finished sentences, remembering it all once the story began.
“You know, I think I might like to do your job,” he told me one day. I had watched him care for his mother, who had Alzheimer’s, until she passed away, so I knew he would be excellent. “I couldn’t wash people or wipe their bums though.”
“What do you mean you couldn’t? You did with your mum; you were wonderful with her.”
“Yeah, but that was my mum – it’s different.”
“Well, we aren’t there as homecare – they do the personal care, which you so charmingly describe as bum wiping,” I teased him. “But clients can have accidents and you will need to help them. Trust me, when it happens you will be more concerned for them, to ease their embarrassment and make them comfortable. You won’t even be thinking about yourself.”
He interviewed well and was hired. Now I enjoy his stories about days with clients. One night, he said to me: “Well, it happened.”
“What happened?”
“I had to do personal care today.”
The room was silent as I waited for him to explain. I was pleased he didn’t refer to it as bum wiping now. “He had an accident and I sorted it out. You were right; I wasn’t thinking of me at all.”
“So, you can do personal care.”
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