A much overlooked and under-appreciated segment of an area's population is the nurses and aides working at nursing homes, assisted-living centers and in private homes. But they're not under-appreciated by the families of the people to whom they minister.
Here's a typical scenario by which this comes into play: An aged widower parent has deteriorated to the point at which living on his own is no longer possible. He forgets to do things that must be done; when he can remember them, he's no longer capable of doing them satisfactorily; he can barely walk and shouldn't drive.
His offspring is a member of a working couple. No one is home during the day. The 24-hour care the father would require every day is beyond affordable. Maybe the house isn't set up to accommodate him, anyway.
The only solution is an assisted-living center or, if that is beyond the father's capacities, a nursing home.
The family agonizes over the decision to place him there, though. There is the feeling they are abandoning him after a lifetime of toil making sure his own family is taken care of.
In the end, though, no other alternative presents itself, and a nursing home it is.
The day the father is left alone in his room will be a heartbreaking one for the family. He knows no one there and is probably at that moment scarcely interested in making new friends and taking up group activities. The family leaves the nursing home haunted by the specter of the father sitting alone with his thoughts in a strange room with nothing to do and no one to talk with.
That's where the aides and nurses come in. They are a unique breed, generally — probably exceedingly busy but dedicated to the goal of seeing that their charges are treated with respect and dignity and that the lives of those in their care are filled with as much happiness as can be attained.
The best of these women and men actually augment, if not replace, the love the family would be lavishing if they were there 24 hours a day.
In a nursing home or assisted-living facility, of course, an aide can't be in the person's room for long stretches, as there is much to do.
It doesn't take long for a visitor to one of these facilities to notice which nurses and aides are the ones who are driven by love of their job and their residents as opposed to any who are there only for the paycheck.
To anxious relatives, the best of them are pure gold. Even they may not realize what comfort they provide — and not just to the residents they attend.
