Keeping our sense of humor...
Kids and Our Parents Say the darndest Things!
A caregiver’s life is full of stress. We often times have to juggle family, job, shopping, and then do everything for Mom & Dad. As Dementia and other conditions set in with our parents, sometimes what they say can be for some humorous conversation! We would like to introduce Gretchen Miller. Gretchen is a professional in Retirement Living who shares her own humorous observations of the days she lives with the residents around her.
Do you have a story to share?
Gretchen's storyMy name is Gretchen Miller and I am a 28 year old mother to a beautiful and attitude filled 4 year old daughter and soon to be twin boys that are due at the end of December. I have been working in the adult care field for a year now but have always worked in customer service, and have always enjoyed my older customers the most.I watched my own mother take care of both her elderly parents until they both passed away and saw how hard it was emotionally, physically, and financially on not only the child care giver but everyone in the caregivers’ family. To take care of your own parents is a situation that you hope never comes about, but it is reality for more and more adult children these days. Along with the sometimes overwhelming heaviness of it all comes a sort of comic relief if you will…a light side of the dark, and that is where I come in. Raising a family with small children is a lot like taking care of elderly parents on many levels and I see that more and more each day. I am blessed to work here and spend time with my residents and resident’s families. My daily life brings more than its fair share of adventures and interesting experiences that I am blessed to share with you. I have always looked to humor to deal with hard or heavy situations and I hope that my experiences and daily trials and tribulations can bring a little smile to all of you. If reading about my life and all the craziness it entails helps you in anyway then I have done my job!
Sometimes I go home at night laughing to myself about my day simply because of my residents here at work and all the wonderfully random things they say. Don’t get me wrong…I am not making fun of a single one of them but you can’t help but get enjoyment out of their innocently blunt comments, such as the first time I met Miss Nedra Parsons. I was wheeled up, sitting up at my desk inside the front door, when Nedra waiting for her cabulance to take her to an outside doctor appointment. I said hello to her and asked her how her day was going. Nedra just looked at me with pure disgust and without skipping a beat and said: "Where are your pants?
I looked down to see what she was talking about and to make sure that my pants were still in tact. (I was wearing stone colored khakis that day and my sweet Nedra, through her macular degeneration apparently couldn't tell, and thought that they looked like plain skin!!) It was all I could do to keep a straight face.
"Nedra, I am wearing pants today. They are just light in color", trying to still keep my composure. Well, Nedra wanted nothing of that. She looked at me with all the seriousness in the world and said “Well I have been around for awhile and in my time a young lady would NEVER come to work pants less! You seem like a nice enough girl but I think you should go home and change right now.” I simply agreed with her and told her I would do just that.
I giggled to myself all day about my ‘missing pants’ and have been enjoying Nedra's honesty ever since!
Share your humor and anecdotes below!