When I was in eighth grade, my grandfather ended up getting really sick. He had been recently divorced and thus had nobody to take care of him. Because of this, he ended up moving into my house with my parents and I. It was now our responsibility to take care of him. However, my parents worked during the weekdays and he would have been home alone, except for the occasional visits from a nurse, a government-appointed one I should add. For my role, I was just a young teenager who was home from school on February break. My views of that week were doing nothing other than playing video games all day and having fun. I found out that I wouldn't be able to play video games all day with my sick grandpa living in the same house.
Whenever he wanted me to throw something away, he would call for me to run into the kitchen and collect whatever garbage he had and put in the trash can. Whenever the phone would ring, he'd yell "phone!" and I would have to race to answer it for him. I remember getting annoyed with him since I was on break and just wanted to have fun. But, my role that week was to take care of my sick grandpa. Throughout that week, we bonded over cards and cookies. I figured out that taking care of him wasn't always about doing boring stuff like throwing away garbage for him, but I could also take care of him by helping him through the day and help keep his mind off of all the ways he was suffering.
For that week in February, I was a "carer" for my grandpa. But, also throughout his stint of living with us, my parents and I were collectively carers of my grandpa. My parents who smoked at the time had to adjust and only would smoke upstairs so that he would not be effected by it. Also, the reason why their room was even upstairs was because they let my grandpa have their bedroom on the first floor so he wouldn't have to continuously go up and down the stairs.
For those times, we took care of my sick grandpa. Unlike the novel, Never Let Me Go, when taking care of somebody gives off a completely different meaning. In the novel, Karen H. is a carer and has been doing her job for a long time. While my family's job to care for my grandpa did not last for a very long time, Karen's job lasted for years and years. But, her job was to take care of patients who organs were taken out of them. She was taking care of the dying, which was actually what my family and I were doing with my grandpa. But, in her case, "they" took people's organs on purpose and then made her take care of them. That's a bit different than a family taking care of a sick relative. We were taking care of my grandpa in hopes that he would get better, but with Karen's patients, there is no getting better. Being a carer in that situation just seems like a waste of time and I figured out that I certainly wasn't wasting my time taking care of my grandpa.
It does seem like the term "carer" is a bit ironic in the novel. The carers help otherwise healthy people die slowly while their internal organs are removed. Death is an inevitable end for every mortal being, but when it is forced, the act of caring for someone else becomes, not pointless, but ironic.
ReplyDeleteI think it's so interesting that you talk about being a 'carer' as if it's a physical job. Caring took on a whole new meaning when your grandfather moved into your home. I think in a way, caring for someone, especially elderly people, is a job. To care for someone means (in my opinion) to love them unconditionally no matter what, and sometimes that can be challenging - especially when they get on your nerves!
ReplyDeleteI think your job of caring for your grandpa is a little more like the job Kathy had in the novel than you think. Yes, she does it for multiple people and has been for years, but she is essentially doing what you were doing. She was taking the donor's mind off their most recent donation so they could get healthy again. That is essentially what you were doing that winter break with your grandpa. You played cards with him to get his mind off how much pain he was in. I think what the novel doesn't mention is that it seems Kathy is a better person for helping her donors, no matter how exhausted and worn out she is. Like you said, it wasn't a waste of your time. So what does that mean? Did it make you closer to your grandpa? Did he get better and move out of your house? Or something else entirely
ReplyDeleteI like the contrast this situation compared to the novel. Here, I feel, is what we see caring as...taking care of someone because it is to help them, not hinder them. Taking care of your grandfather was good for him and good for you and your family because you all were able to help one another, whether it be taking out the garbage or just getting to know each other more. This type of thing does happen in the novel, but the situation is drastically different.
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