Janet Dunnett, author of a memoir about a decade of caregiving for her two parents at the end of their lives, says, “caregiving, was the hardest job I ever loved.”
The week of May 5 to 11 is a chance to acknowledge this and show appreciation – it’s Family Caregivers Week in British Columbia. Without caregivers working between what health providers do and the cared for person striving for the best life possible, our systems would unravel in short order.
During Family Caregivers week, author Janet Dunnett is visiting Island bookstores for Meet the Author events.
On May 8 from 2-4 p.m. Dunnett will be at the Laughing Oyster Bookstore in downtown Courtenay, eager to chat. Sharing stories is a way we can support each other on the caregiving journey.
“I call it being a peer with an ear,” she says.
Family members who help their spouses or aging parents are becoming an even bigger part of our society. We all know a caregiver living the experience now, ruminating about it long after caregiving ended, or looking at the road ahead with trepidation. One in four British Columbians, about a million adults, is in the thick of caregiving on any given day.
Most of us who have been caregivers, or who are doing it now, would agree with this. It is the paradox. A reality in which there is so much grit to be endured also has so much bliss to be savoured and remembered long after the caregiving journey is over.
