Thank you for your support! Here's the link to watch the behind-the-scenes bonus episode on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/T98IUmf_ZAg
Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver
Sisterhood of Care, LLC
Thank you for your support! Here's the link to watch the behind-the-scenes bonus episode on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/T98IUmf_ZAg
Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver
Sisterhood of Care, LLC
Hey guys, it's your favorite sisters with the Confessions of a reluctant caregiver podcast and you're listening to after the confession. Now, let's listen in as it was just getting good Natalie and J and we're here with David O'Leary with after the confessions. Now David's really going to tell all the story he held back
JJ:right off the bat. I have a question.
Natalie:David, I thought that I'd done all the questions go.
JJ:No, I'm done. Okay, I got it. I do have a fun question, though. What was your initial like I heard you say, initial reaction, but when he comes home, and he tells you that he has found he's found someone like you figure this out? Because yeah, mom actually met someone. And he had Parkinson's, but they had a passion to find a cure. Like, did you feel beat? What was that like? Feeling?
Natalie:What was that? Yeah, for you as a son? Like,
JJ:like, did all your brothers and sisters react the same? That's another question.
Unknown:You know, my sister, I don't think ever really except to her, in a truest sense, because she was the only daughter, and it was replacing her mom. And so that really became an issue. I think, for me. There was disbelief to begin with, I mean, I just didn't believe this. And, you know, part of me was like, this really can't be happening. There was a little I don't want to say, I did. I didn't like her. But she was never going to be my mother. Yeah. And, and so it just became, it was it was awkward in the beginning, I think is the greatest way to say it. But we warmed up. We had them banned for Thanksgiving. You know, when we lived in Texas, they came down and spent Thanksgiving with us. And, you know, she, she was great with him. They, they continued to travel together, they would travel all the time, and they were very active. And you know what? He was happy. And that's really what it all comes down to. You want people to be happy. It's
JJ:almost like a respect of that decision. Because I know that mom's the friends that she's had the people they have, they have made her life better. And for that, I know that she hasn't forgotten my dad's memory. And I know that she loves my dad. And but I know that that's a good thing. I think that he would want that for two. I don't think he would want her to be lonely, ever. No.
Unknown:And it was never a question with him. I mean, he always talked about mom with me. And he always said, I'm going to be buried with her. And it was she was, you know, Elvis was being buried with her husband, dad and be buried with his wife. And so it was just it was companionship, but later on in life for them. It was it was something to do things with it was that whole it wasn't. It was a different type of love. I will. Absolutely,
Natalie:yeah, I totally, I can see that. Well, mom used to talk about that, like you just really want someone to do stuff with. And I think you're right about loneliness. You know, we haven't ever really no one's ever brought up the kind of broken heart syndrome, especially because, I mean, you know, divorce is a lot more prevalent now. I had a starter husband, and well today that but I've been with my husband now for we've been together for almost, it'll be 20 years this year. And so I just needed to work out the kinks. And so, but I you know, you have people that are married for 50 6070, you know, 70 years. And so I just think, you know, you are with somebody all the time, I think that would be a little hard to not not be with somebody, but it was, it was weird for me. Like when mom said, Hey, I have this friend. And I'm like, really? Again. So, so tell us a little bit more maybe about because I know that you'd said hey, I've got some more stuff, you know, like about little Grammy? Like, what was that like a little bit kind of going into that? With little Grammy, do you think that that experience of supporting her? And the evolution of that support helped you with your parents?
Unknown:I think so because I use them as examples when I was working in that. My in laws never had an opportunity to plan because my father in law passed when he was 51. She was 50 My parents had an opportunity to plan because that was retired and they had had a long retirement together before mom passed. And so there were there was the differences and in doing so, little Graeme unfortunately, you know, she thought that she was going to be a very wealthy woman when in 1984 she received a life insurance check for$150,000 because she had no concept of really what the world was and where things were. So First awkward conversation I had to have with her was not about the money it was about, she needed to find a job for benefits, because she was on his benefits. And he was not eligible to retire at the time because he passed. And so because he hadn't had enough years to retirement, so she had to get health care. Yeah. And telling a woman who had never worked outside the home in her life before that, you know, never went to college, went to high school, never went to college, just you have to go find a job for benefits. And I was less worried about money with her than I was worried about medical benefits, because we would take care of the money part of her even though we didn't know what we were doing, we can still take care of the money part of her is what we did until we agreed to we would we would do that for her. And so that was kind of the thing. And then she and I, you know, she would always call Lim she called her Lindy, she would always call in Lynnie for the other things. And then if anybody ever called her with questions that she didn't want to answer, she would just say, Oh, you have to call David and she touched hang up on it. So she and I became, we kind of had this, we really developed a pretty good rhythm between us. And so I say all this is an I didn't give you the full backdrop. Linda and I were married 52 weeks after our first date. So I didn't know her parents very long before we took on her mother. And so her mother and I kind of formed a relationship. And it was a very special relationship to me in that regard as well. And that she would listen to me and she would she was basically her parents at that point in time and telling her what to do and helping her through things. And throughout the 39 years, we did this together, we had a pretty good rhythm. And we probably had five arguments and 3039 years of substance. But we just kind of worked through things together. She was a little Sicilian woman. And you know, she was little grammage kept on getting little or the older she got, but she would get tinier and tinier. And so, but she was she was she was a very happy lady. She was very contented in her role. She had her she had her things that she did. She was a huge quilter. And she would make quilts and donate them to the Ronald McDonald House and everything else for people, she would just so we buy our other fabrics, she would just quilt all day, and she she would bake and she would cook and she baked for the kids when they were home. And, you know, it was all these things that she would do. And you find a way to make all this work. But I will you asked me during the main part of it. I actually, as a person probably grew much more in those relationships with them. And I became a better person because of those times than if I didn't have those things, because they made me appreciate things differently. Wow. Oh, it's so different to have you right now. Right? So deep for the two of you are gonna go no,
Natalie:no, because I I'm like, I totally agree with that. Because I think there's a reason we go through these experiences. Yeah. And that's the way kind of I look at that. And it's an opportunity. I hear you telling me I think about how fortunate your boys were. And I say that because they had the opportunity to grow up with their grandparents pretty. It sounds like there was the I love the idea of that every Sunday. We're in every Sunday family growing up, we went to our grandmother's all five of the children were there, it was never an option not to come you didn't even think about not coming. It's what you do. It's almost like you drive on the right side of the road. Why would you drive on the left. And so there was always play outside, it was all that stuff. And we were super, we're super close to our cousins. And so even though we live in other states, you know, our that our aunt passed, and she's the first of the siblings, my mom's siblings to pass. And we saw each other at their funeral home. Probably not appropriate. But we were all like it was a family reunion and you always wonder you're like, why is it that when a funerals happen is the family reunion. But we're all just chatting like we had just seen each other. And I think about for your boys, I think about they have also learned from other generations like your dad. Yeah, your dad was a beast. I mean, he was in the Navy. I mean, you didn't even go into as much about his background, because I just think he's, you know, I have a lot of like, I've never met your dad and I really already like him. So especially with the whole six Saturdays and Sunday, a Sunday.
Unknown:You can you can have that when Natalie you can use that
Natalie:I'm using it all the time. I'll be like my friend David told me this because now you can't not be my friend. Um, so here's the last question and then we'll we'll jump but what's, um, what would you have told your younger self? Is there anything that you look at now? Because you talked about, you know, you talked about role reversal. And you talked about the decisions through their eyes. I really liked that. Is there anything else that you would yourself now? Tell your younger self at any point during the journey?
Unknown:That's always a very interesting question when you get that, and my answer is not meant to be trite, it's more meant to be No, I wouldn't tell myself anything differently. Because I don't want to go, I don't want to live backwards. I want to live forward. And the experiences that I went through in my life got me to today. And they weren't all the best experiences, they weren't all the right experience. I didn't make all the right decisions with my mother in law and my parents, but I made the decisions that I thought were the right decisions. They weren't always correct, but I thought they were the right decisions at the time. And what I got from that is it's you can call it the continuous learning or try things and fail. I mean, even when I was working, I used to always use the phrase for the organizations that I was responsible for that says, you can make mistakes every day, but you have to be original, your mistakes. Because if you're not making mistakes, you're not trying. And if you're not trying, you're not getting better. And the world is gonna go by you. And so as I look at my mom, my mother, my father, and little grandma, my mother in law, I tried constantly, I would try to do the right things. And sometimes they were the wrong things. And I would learn from that. And I would make a different mistake the next time because I think that there is no map with this caregiving stuff. When you receive that phone call, or get that instance, or anything else. And I've had, I've seen this play out in many instances, It's utter chaos ensues, you don't know where to turn, you don't know what to turn to. And so you start to fumble around and do things. Now, the benefit of today versus 20 3040 years ago, is that there are more and more organizations out there, creating the tools, creating the opportunity to be guidance for people through this process. And I think that people need to understand they're not alone. It's a lonely existence. It's a hard existence. It's a terrifying existence. But there is help to be had out there. I will give you a shameless plug for that company that I'm doing some work with some people horizon that has a has a wonderful tool called caregiver. And it's it's all about navigating caregiving, and many different aspects of caregiving. And as I look back and think about it, again, whether it's 1020 3040 years ago, is you have to do so much research on your own, you spend so much energy and so much time looking for things that what companies are doing today, like some polarizing Perego is that they take that worry away from you. And they give you back the most valuable thing you can have is time. And then you get to make memories with those that you love, as opposed to making memories googling all day long trying to figure out what to do next. Yeah. And so while you know you have children, I have children, but I never brought children into the world, if you will, my but my bride did that. When our kids were born, she always had the book, What to Expect When You're Expecting. I'm sure every mother went through all of that. I've always thought about what to expect when you're aging. And if you start to really look for things along those lines, you will start to see the signs of aging. And you'll start to see the things that can go on. And I think that you can't be afraid to have the conversations you have to start the conversations in your family and you have while I don't have any parents or in laws any longer. I still wish I did because I would want to have those conversations and I will tell you striking up the conversations around aging sooner rather than later is probably the the if you want any advice, it's that it is not meant to be a difficult conversation. They're not always easy. But you have to start and because you because otherwise it's going to wind up one day at someone's door and they're going to be totally lost and not know what the person wants them out know what to do.
Natalie:After the end it right there. That was perfect.
Unknown:Go ahead. No, no, no,
Natalie:no, there's more. I can feel it.
Unknown:No. Okay. I'm good. Guys.
Natalie:Thanks so much for listening in to after the confession. David, we love you. You're forever brother. We don't have any brothers so
JJ:far. We just take all the ones we can find and
Unknown:address again. JJ. You're welcome. You're welcome.
JJ:And I believe this addresses the last
Unknown:point. Alaska Natalie get on a plane to Alaska. Get out of the dog mushers and you'll find the eventually Natalie will talk. Yep.
Natalie:Guys, thanks so much for listening in. We'll see you next time. Well friends, that's a wrap for this week's after the confession. Thanks so much for subscribing. It's your support that makes this podcast possible. And don't forget to visit our website to sign up for our monthly newsletter. Sign up for the free sisterhood advantage discount club. And of course connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, tik, Tok, Twitter, and Pinterest. You'll also find the video recording of all our episodes on the confessions website and our YouTube Channel. We'll see you next time when we confess again, till then take care of you