Carol Pulley- Daughter, Friend and Caregiver to my Mom

As a therapist, I often recommend journaling to clients and I know how healing and cathartic it is for them. I recently experienced it first hand, as I have been reading and writing blogs about care giving for, “iTherapy Celebrates Caregivers Month.”

After reading many people’s posts about how much they love being caregivers, I realized that I had been focusing on the challenges of care giving and not the joy’s. I began thinking about the “twinkle” that was always in my mother’s eye. Even in her 80’s and in a wheelchair, my mom was up for anything. I don’t think she ever said no to anything we invited her to, she did not want to miss a minute. We even went to London and Paris.

I remember taking her to New York City for her 80th birthday, what was I thinking !  She was in a wheelchair and it was just the tow of us on a “girl’s weekend”, but that did not slow us down. Everywhere we went, restaurants, museums, a Broadway play, people helped us get taxis and get the wheel chair in and out of tough spots, it was never a problem.

For instance, Mom wanted to go to the Sunday service at St. Patricks’ Cathedral, we got to the church and I noticed there were quite a few, well, a lot of steps, and before I could even think about what to do, two ushers appeared and picked up her wheel chair with her in it and carried her up the many steps and then proceeded to seat us in the front row !

I could share so many more stories, shopping, getting ice cream, whatever we suggested up, she was always happy to join. I hope that I will inherit her openness to fun and the “twinkle in her eye”!