CNY Inspirations: Caregiving is redemptive

CNY Inspirations: Caregiving is redemptive 
Syracuse.com, Syracuse, NY; by InterFaith Works of Central New York; 11/3/24 
I will carry him with me for my life as one of the greatest examples of caring that I ever met. I will be obscure on the details, but he cared for his wife, who was completely immobilized, with a degree of fidelity, creativity, and painstaking love that I have rarely seen and could only hope to imitate. He lived what Arthur Kleinman calls in his book of the same title, The Soul of Care. ... He says, “Caregiving, for me, at its deepest was redemptive. It redeemed me…. in caregiving, there is a common tug of war between the sometimes-bitter feelings that care is a burden and the more heartening certainty that no matter how burdensome, it is ultimately rewarding.” ... My friend never expressed that verbally, but I saw it lived as I watched him over the years through periods of anxiety, weariness, anger, hurt, despair, and through it all, intense, personal demanding caregiving. “And so, in the end, the soul of care pivots to care of the soul.” Inauspiciously, my friend took good care of his soul…and certainly helped mine.