It’s coming up to a year since my Dad died. I am about to move back into the old family home. The past year has been tumultuous as I have steadily worked through all the jobs and challenges that follow the death of someone who had Alzheimer’s for the last stage of their life, but had a daughter who enabled them to stay in their own home (with a whole lifetime of clutter/treasures).
I’m in a process of change that means the re-unification of what became two lives, back into one. Caring for someone with dementia can mean that you yourself are lost in the many demands that your loved one makes, both consciously and increasingly unconsciously as their condition progresses. Thankfully I was well advised to keep a place of my own so that I had a place of rescue and a place to hold me safe in the whirling dervish of dementia care. This place is now going to be handed to someone else, a lovely rented flat. I am now going to move into the house that was my original home… it is an interesting move and not easy some may say. But it is the move I wanted and my Dad wanted for me too. It is a place of new beginnings… a new start, whilst still reminding me of good memories of old. There’s lots of work to do, but I’m kind of used to that now.
I wanted to make a simple recording of this final step in my dementia carer journey… no longer keeping two houses, two lives two care plans going, but returning back to one. It’s going to feel a bit strange for a while, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
Just one last question… Do I get a badge?
WeCareDesign 