Yup, that’s exactly how you feel. Forget sucking it up! Try some real tips and tools based in lived experience so you stop feeling like a burnt-out triple-decker grilled cheese sandwich. Your courageous advocate Carol-Ann says it like it is. And that’s no bologna!
Having seen my Dad through escalating crises, hospitalization and his passing three summers ago, surely you’d expect me to have long ago entered Bridges’ New Beginnings phase of the Transitions Model. Sorry to say, but the answer remained a definitive NO until 2015.
Our key point here is that just because you’ve gone through Endings and the Neutral Zone does not automatically mean you’re now in New Beginnings. Everyone has their own pace.Read More
I would well understand if you imagined my father’s passing on August 26, 2012 also marked the completion of my own transitions process. Unfortunately, the answer is by no means.
For certain, the desire to rush through the next phase in William Bridges’ Transitions Model is typically North American. In our fervent (almost hyper) quest to get on with it, we want nothing more than to avoid the “squishiness” of the Neutral Zone.
Yet, as poet Robert Frost famously remarked: “The best way out is through”. Nowhere is his sentiment more pertinent than the navigation of the uncomfortable middle ground of eldercare.Read More
Picking up where we left off, today’s post will deal with the Endings phase of the three-part Transitions Model as introduced by author and consultant William Bridges.
For Bridges, Endings are akin to the grieving process as brought to us by Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. A pioneer in near-death studies and ground-breaking author of On Death and Dying, Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief: 1) Denial; 2) Anger; 3) Bargaining; 4) Depression; and 5) Acceptance.
In our eldercare setting, let’s examineRead More
As I prepare my next set of blogs, it’s hard to imagine we stand at three years since pivotal summer 2012.
On July 23rd that year, my father was suddenly hospitalized. On August 26th, he passed away a mere five weeks later.
In some ways, the intervening 36 months feel like a nanosecond ago. In others, they feel like another century. Given the number of Sandwich Generation caregivers I’ve spoken with between and since, it seems fitting to share myRead More
Picking up where we left off with “Eat Your Vegetables”…
More than once across the decades, my Dad protested as a point of “manhood”Read More
With the bounty of fresh summer fruits and vegetables overflowing our grocery aisles, I must first express gratitude. Having recently celebrated our 148th Canada Day, I might suggest this is a freedom many born here – as opposed to those who arrived from less-fortunate distant lands – could take for granted. Still, mine is not meant to be a political diatribe!
Rather, I’m thinking about my Dad’s chosen eating habits in the midst ofRead More
Last week, I celebrated my 57th Birthday. I could have used language like turned, marked, reached or hit. Instead, I chose to honor myself and all I have been/done for over five decades.
If my Dad was still with us, I assure you his card would have referred to “57 varieties” in deference to the historical advertising slogan of Pittsburgh-based H.J. Heinz Company. How hilarious that I actually located an old Heinz 57 label while recently cleaning out kitchen cupboards!
Given how rapidly my 50’s are unfolding, it got me to thinkingRead More
On this July 6, I celebrate my 57th Birthday.
I consider the occasion a special day. I always have and always will. For, it is the day I decided to arrive on planet Earth. I see the same thing for everyone, no matter your circumstances. The world would not be the same without you in it.
You know, one of the neat things about being born mid-yearRead More
Having just passed Father’s Day, I had recent occasion to pull out Ken Gallinger’s “Ethically Speaking” advice column from the Toronto Star newspaper of Saturday, May 24, 2014. The title is: No ‘obligation’ to donate kidney to ailing dad.
In essence, the children of an 83-year-old father with kidney disease who must undergo dialysis are inquiring whether they have a moral obligation toRead More
There’s just something about fathers and daughters, as there often is between mothers and sons. While the mother-daughter relationship can be estranged, the father-son connection can be equally strained. I have friends in my circles who know all these combinations very well.
Across the 54 years I had my Dad, our bond wasn’t without its ups and downs. In fact, there were whole stretches of years where I secretlyRead More
