When my husband and I rescued his parents in NY and brought them into our home to care for them, everyone said I was crazy. Just take them to a nursing home they said. My mother was a nurse in a nursing home, and I have seen many nursing homes from the staff’s and nurse’s side. I don’t want to be in a nursing home (or in ‘Memory Care’ or whatever name is given to institutional care) as an employee or as a “resident” (inmate is more like it) no matter how pretty it is and I don’t want anyone else to be there either because I believe in doing unto others as I would have done unto me. I believe we should love our elders and spouses enough to go the extra mile to care for them. I know it is hard…I am doing it for my mother in law. That is why we have the health club for seniors. It is a way for us to have time for ourselves to renew and refresh so we can be better caregivers while providing what my mom in law needs: medical oversight, nutrition, social engagement, hygiene help, exercise. I always cite the analogy of traveling on an airplane with your child when the oxygen masks drop down because of turbulence and lack of oxygen: You have to put the mask on yourself first or you will pass out and no one will be left to care for your child.

To you people (you know who you are): Do you really think your loved one is being well cared for in whatever institution you put them in? If you do, you suffer from delusions. You are not in touch with reality. It is a societal delusion that stems from selfishness. We take better care of our pets than our loved ones here in the USA. Picking up dog poop is socially acceptable, but we cringe at the thought of cleaning up an elderly person’s poo. You would not put your dog or cat in an institution because it cannot care for itself. Yet you put your so called ‘loved one’ there. You do not love them. If you loved them, you would care for them the same way you care for your dog or cat. You would clean up their poop.

But don’t worry…your ‘loved one’ will not retaliate or tell on you or on the people who are not kind and loving to them in the institution. Like a dog or cat, they can’t communicate meaningfully with words. Only God knows. His will be done.