I wanted to talk a little about something I mentioned recently about dealing with caring for my disabled brother. I've heard many times that having a family member in such a serious condition as he is in has often makes or breaks families. I'm not going to lie and say it's easy to deal with. Sometimes I think that the reason my solemn and placid nature is because of it. I grew up watching my brother's struggles and often at times serious enough to be life threatening, and it affected me immensely. My family as it is with all of the strong personalities and independent tendencies could have easily fallen into the break category, but we had an amazing grandparent and extended family examples that taught us how powerful a family can be when its members support each other. Instead, we found that our disabled brother became a binding and unifying element for us as we grew up.
For us, this worked, because we were all willing to work together to make sure our brother had his needs taken care of. We shared the load, and I think that eased the burden off of our parents also. If a scheduling conflict came up, we worked it out to make sure that someone was available for him. It sometimes got challenging, but there was always a solution. As the one closest in age to him, it often came to me, but I didn't mind. I didn't mind being home and I didn't have a lot of friends to play with after school, so it all worked out. As a result, we're BFFs. I have memories with him that I'm not sure any of my other siblings have experienced. An interesting side comment: When this recent issue came up and we had to yet work out how to see he was taken care of, his caseworker made a complimentary remark about the efforts our family makes to have his needs taken care of. We received a similar compliment from our dear neighbor friend who's unfortunately going through a rough time with her cancer at this time. That seemed to be the only thing she could talk about, how our efforts of taking care of him have inspired and uplifted her.
Yes, taking care of him is still a challenge, but my siblings have picked up their efforts a little more to spare me from taking on too much more. I have to help a little, but it's not the same. In fact, I really felt the burden lifting off of my shoulders when the others decided to help more. I still have a lot to do, but having to worry about one less thing feels so freeing. I know a lot of neighbors get really frustrated, because I don't ask them for help often, but the whole reason behind that isn't because I don't want it as much as it is that I have tremendous family support and haven't needed it--yet. It's amazing.
If only more people could experience that.
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