Opinion | Haims: Finding purpose through caregiving
There can be many reasons someone steps into the role of caring for another. Sometimes a friend or loved one needs help recovering from an illness or surgery. Other times, someone needs assistance with everything that comes with getting through the day. The role of caregiver is sometimes requested, sometimes demanded and sometimes chosen.
When a loved one needs short-term help, people often say, “Tell me what you need and I’ll be there.” Offers of kindness come from many places. However, often those who step up are often not prepared, or available, for the long term. When a need becomes long-term, resources dwindle. Friends have their own lives, families, and jobs. It’s understandable.
Yet when people do step into a caregiving role, helping another can be deeply gratifying. Most don’t arrive at caregiving as a career move, but to fill a need. To their surprise, stepping outside themselves for another reaps benefits beyond imagination.
My office recently received a request from a son living out of state to care for his mother, who was experiencing mild cognitive impairment. She had been living alone in an apartment for many years, and recent conversations left him concerned about her wellbeing. He asked us to set up an initial home visit and share suggestions for her care — though he warned us she was quite apprehensive about receiving help.
When we arrived, it took considerable time to be invited in. Once inside, we sat and chatted, and quickly realized the need was substantial. The home was in great disarray: The refrigerator was full of expired food, medications were strewn throughout the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom, and the stove had been left on. She couldn’t recall the last time she had seen a medical provider.
Support Local Journalism
Complicating matters was staffing. We had been short-staffed for a while, and my office manager and I felt it would take a very special person to be accepted into this lady’s home. Did we have such a person?
After a brief discussion, we realized the perfect caregiver was right in front of us — a mother of two young adults who had also given the best care humanly possible to her own parent, offering love, protection and advocacy — and treating her parent with dignity and respect.
Her previous careers had in no way prepared her for caregiving. But her life skills, compassion and desire to do work that inspired her were all she needed to give it a try. Recently, she called our office, giddy. She had not only gone swimming with her client, but out to dinner too. She had broken through her client’s barriers — and she told us how rewarded she felt, knowing she had made a difference.
Often, life happens to us with little notice or choice. We try to manage the direction, but sometimes we get derailed and lose sight of what inspires us — or worse, our sense of purpose and value. Yet when we stand back and see how life’s challenges have been overcome, we find a rebirth. Purpose, passion and selflessness can be truly infectious.
Because caregiving, at its heart, is not about tasks or schedules — it’s about connection. It’s the moment when a hand is held, when trust is earned, when a smile returns to a face that had nearly forgotten how. Whether the role begins as a duty or arrives as a calling, it transforms everyone it touches. The one receiving care rediscovers safety and dignity; the one giving care discovers a depth of purpose they never knew they carried.
So, if life has placed someone in your path who needs you, remember that the most extraordinary chapters of our lives often begin with the simple words, “I’m here for you.” In caring for another, we don’t lose ourselves. We find ourselves.
Judson Haims is the owner of Visiting Angels Home Care in Eagle County. He is an advocate for our elderly and is available to answer questions. Connect with him at jhaims@visitingangels.com.
