The last Amazing Care meeting I went to was three years ago now, because of the Pandemic, and everything shut down. I want to dust off some of those memories and some of what we learned through all of that. I hope we will re-engage soon.

Pat Loo, our president got us involved because he saw that the Amazing Care idea would be a good complement to our pension benefit for members.  Our membership is so young, they don’t fully understand the need yet, because for the most part, their parents are young and healthy.  But I saw what was happening with Pat and his parents

Pat would come in everyday and share stories about his Father-in-law.  The stories would be funny, but actually it’s not.  Having someone you knew intimately and understood so clearly for all those years while they were healthy…and then all of the changes that happened during the last part of his life, all of the transitions to having to take care of him…it was hard for both of them.

I was worried about my parents, wondered if I would have to go through the same thing. Would I have to quit work? Where would the money come from?  Unfortunately, they both passed within a year of each other.  So I was spared having to face those issues first hand myself. Being able to go to meetings with Amazing Care, helped me cope with issues I didn’t know about.  Thank you Cora, for having speakers with the knowledge we need to help us with our daily/future lives.

It’s all a process…it’s part of life. But it’s hard finding the comfort to talk about it.  Having the Amazing Care group really is helpful here…it makes a difference when you can share the experience you are going through…the experience your parents are going through.  It’s really hard accepting the changes.

I didn’t really know anything about Care Homes, or getting my own home ready to live in when I’m older. My boys are going to have to learn how to help me.  When we had young kids, we went in and baby-proofed everything, right? We learned all of that new information that we needed for that part of life. We’re going to need to plan and organize a different set of things for the other end of life.

It’s surprising really…people don’t think or realize that they need this kind of knowledge and support.  But we all do.  We all will.