FAMILY CORNERMy husband and I returned to the United States in June of 1998, after an absence of some years, during which we had worked and lived in Hong Kong. While living abroad, we had already learned the meaning of the term "long distance caregiving" from concrete experience. When the call came from Best View in January of that year, to let us know that at the 1998 national AGO convention, Roberta would be awarded the AGO President's Award, our lives began inevitably to change course. At first, we thought we were embarking on another routine trip "home," but as the date of the convention neared, our recognition of the changes to come became ever more insistent. We arranged for Roberta to fly with a close friend and colleague from Connecticut to Denver, Colorado, where the 101st annual AGO convention was to be held. We made the 20-odd-hour trek by air from Hong Kong to Denver, and as we came through the revolving door of the convention hotel, I heard, through the echoing din of hotel-lobby chatter, my own mother's distinctive voice: "Is that Grace?" From that moment, my experience of family life was turned upside-down, as I learned the ultimate value of seeing things from another person's perspective.
After the Denver convention, our relocation to New England became an emerging reality, followed by a five-year period of hands-on engagement in caregiving from very close range, regularly sharing tasks with Roberta's helpers not only in order to make ends meet, but also to create a seamless experience of daily life for her. If you are interested, you can find out more about Roberta's plan of care, and some of the people and organizations who helped us to implement it, by following the links below. Or, if you are in the U.S. and need help with implementing something similar yourself, you might want to contact your nearest chapter of the Alzheimers' Association. One thing I learned from acting as Roberta's "carer" is that there's no substitute for intimate knowledge about the person who suffers from dementia. Realizing this kept me going through a very long period of hands-on involvement. An inspiring site to visit, to learn more about this perspective, is sponsored by the Alzheimer's Association of Australia. Whatever has brought you to the Roberta Bitgood Commons, I hope you will find something relevant to your concerns, and thank you for visiting! — Grace Wiersma
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