An Ode to Cee-Cee's Hands

(A Caretaker's Story)

AI-generated image of “nurse and elderly person”

Caretakers tend to remain silent. Because whatever details a caretaker would share implicitly reveals private, intimate, and perhaps difficult details of another person’s life, and that person needs and deserves privacy. So the caretaker stores the details inside of herself, where they fill the chambers of her mind and echo with the atonal sounds of an orchestra tuning-up over and over and over and over and over and over again.

I know someone who looks after an elderly woman, and she is yearning to share what caretaking is like for her. Today, I’ve offered to write a piece based on what she told me she was going through the other day. I’ll call the caretaker Cee-Cee (for Confessional Caretaker). I’ve written an “Ode to Cee-Cee’s Hands.”

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ODE TO CEE-CEE’S HANDS

It is morning, and Cee-Cee’s hands are slathered in ointment, when they are not emailing the woman’s friends to say she no longer reads email so could they text her instead, when they are not pulling the fruit from the freezer and putting it back into the fridge where it belongs, when they are not typing a new chart where she’ll mark off the meds the woman has taken, when they are not texting the woman’s friend to inquire what the next book club book is and when and where and who will come for her, when they are not squeezing the eye drops, when they are not pointing at the emergency necklace and reminding her NOT to push it UNLESS she has fallen, when they are not checking the bank balance, when they are not texting the woman’s friends asking them to make a regular coffee or lunch plan, when they are not grasping a marker to make a sign for the bathroom mirror that reads, “TAKE YOUR MORNING MEDICATION FIRST THING,” when they are not throwing out mail about sweepstakes and social security petitions and the pleas of nonprofits, when they are not searching for text messages from family and friends, when they are not deleting the junk messages from politicians, when they are not pointing over at the sign that says “DO NOT MAKE DONATIONS ON YOUR PHONE,” when they are not marking the remote with an arrow next to the “on/off” button, when they are not gripping the steering wheel to get to the doctor on time, when they are not re-typing the text asking her friends to come (how do you get people to come?), when they are not placing an order for the large-sized jigsaw puzzles, when they are not marking the calendar with the name of the person who has said they will come for a visit, when they are not washing off the ointment, when they are not jammed in her pants pockets in fists as she hears a question for the tenth time…

The elderly woman clutches her body and gasps in pain. 
Cee-Cee asks. "Did you take your meds this morning?” 
“No.”
“If you take your meds first thing, it’ll help ease the pain."

When they are not logging into the woman’s email, when they are not explaining how to write the check, when they are not pushing the handle of the car door to go into Walgreens to remind her of her PIN, when they are not

If you take your meds first thing, it’ll help ease the pain.

If you take meds first, it’ll ease

If the meds help

If you take

Did I?

Who?

I?

How do you get people to come. How do you get people to care?

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Are you a caregiver? Do you relate to Cee-Cee’s situation? Do you want to share what’s on your mind? Reply in the comments with what you’re going through, or if you can’t comment publicly (understandable!) just reply to the email in which you read this and it’ll be seen only by me. I will aggregate over time and put more content like this out.

Also, there’s a new book out about caregivers, called When You Care by Elissa Strauss which you can buy at Bookshop, the online independent bookseller, here.

xo

🤗Here’s a hug for Cee-Cee and all the caretakers out there.

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