Do you have a parent with a chronic illness?
Besides the term ‘caregiver’ which has all sorts of connotations, and often doesn’t describe the nuances of our situation, there’s not really a term for us. I like to use the word: ‘Watchers.’
Who are we?
We are the children of parents who live with chronic illnesses. That illness may be physical or mental. It may be recognised or diagnosed. It doesn’t matter. What does is that someone we love is suffering. And that hurts.
I was searching for a word that was all-encompassing. I wanted to avoid the label ‘carer’ – which has connotations of being paid and seems constrained to mere physical care of another. Physical care is invaluable and many of us may provide this for our Loved Ones. Yet others of us do not. Nevertheless, our life is mixed up with our loved one’s pain-filled life.
Do you feel helpless or lonely?
It’s easy to find ourselves helpless, and this is painful and even embarrassing. And this is even harder because we didn’t choose to Watch. This is the parent we have – there is no sickness-free version available.
And so we walk beside them, or in front of them, or behind them.
We cannot choose to walk a mile in their shoes, as the common saying goes.
Even that is denied us.
It’s not easy being the “healthy one”
We apparently have the world at our fingertips – and yet we have unique struggles of our own: We watch our parent – but who watches us? We answer the question ‘How are they?’ – but who asks ‘how are you?’ ? As our parent struggles, we suffer vicariously but also personally. There’s nothing easy about Watching.
Am I really a ‘Watcher’?
Do you have a parent? Are they chronically ill? Then you’re a Watcher. It’s not an exclusive club. There’s no entry free, no prize you have to achieve to enter. There’s nothing fancy about it (although, on one level, there actually is). It’s just life for us.
And that’s such a large part of what makes Watching so hard. It can be lonely. Each of us Watch, but we all Watch alone. Have you ever longed for someone to stand by your side, grasp your forearm and say with knowing, quiet voice and full eyes, ‘I get it. I understand.’?
I have.
That is the purpose of this blog.
You see, there are two answers to loneliness:
One is community, the other is God.
Why start a blog for children of chronically ill parents?
Firstly, it’s a journey that never ends – and so encouragement is needed for the everyday. Secondly, It’s a journey that can have distinct beginnings and endings, and so we need help for these times too. Lastly, Watching a chronically ill parent is a journey that, sooner or later (like every journey) will at some point encounter God. This blog is about that as well. I don’t have all the answers. Often I have none.
Nevertheless, I pray that these words will help you ponder your life as they have helped me ponder mine – and that your experience will be the richer for it.
May they provide a feeble sense of community and a less-feebler sense of God. Like C. S. Lewis, I have only,
“… been emboldened to write of it because I notice that a man seldom mentions what he had supposed to be his most idiosyncratic sensations without receiving from at least one (often more) of those present the reply, ‘What! Have you felt that too? I thought I was the only one.'”
~ C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
