Caregiver in Mourning

🧑🏼‍🦼
I drove by a large intersection this winter.
It had snowed and we were in the wet, sort of melted, slushy stage.
I saw a guy in a power wheelchair.
He had crossed the street and was now stuck.
I knew exactly what had happened.
His front wheels dipped down as he approached the curb and in the snow, he couldn’t make it back up onto the sidewalk ramp.

He was stuck in 6” of wet slush.❄️

He had someone with him.
A skinny girl. Maybe a girlfriend. Maybe a wife. Maybe a sister or a friend.
I watched her navigate her way into the slushy mess and position herself so that she could grab his legrests.

I thought, “There no way that skinny girl is going to get his chair out of that snow.”
I found a place to turn around and headed back to help.
By the time I got there, they were gone.
She did it!

Without even seeing the whole thing happen, I knew how she got the job done.
She planted her feet on both sides of the wheels, in front of the chair.
Then she grabbed the top front area of each legrest where they attach to the chair itself.
She gave a yank up and toward her to try to pop his wheels over the small concrete lip and up onto the sidewalk.
He barely had his hand on his chair controller - giving enough juice to get the wheels moving but not enough to run her over.
He probably still did. Run her over, I mean.
She probably got a smashed toe or footrest to the shin as the chair wobbled it’s way onto the sidewalk. She definitely got wet snow splashed on her.
Then they kept going wherever they were headed.
And he was probably more careful about not thinking he could go through the next pile of slush.
And she was probably thinking, “Right. Like I told you not to do last time.”💁🏻‍♀️

That’s the stuff I don’t miss.

It’s really hard to have Jason gone.
But some things are easier.
Some things I breathe a sigh of relief and say, “I’m so glad I don’t have to do that anymore.”

I was a caregiver.
I miss the one I cared for.
Intensely. Fiercely. With my whole self.

But I don’t miss giving the care.
The rolling him over twice a night, the barriers of traveling, the constant adjusting his position, the picking up everything he dropped, the countless obstacles that the chair couldn’t navigate, the lifting, the pulling, the hospital stays, the surgeries, and his relentless unidentified pain.

And it’s ok.
It’s ok to miss Jason but not miss his chair.
No need to feel guilty or think that I “should have” loved all of that tough caregiving stuff.
It’s ok to love him and not love the chair.
I guarantee, he’s not missing it either.

I wonder what we’ll miss when this worldwide pandemic is over.
Maybe what we expect. Maybe not.
I like the idea of being open to both.✊🏼💙