That's what it should be titled...a daughter's fieldguide...because:
• It's by a daughter who showed up the best she could...
• And for daughters (mostly...) who show up in the caregiving of a parent, as best they can.
This is messy and tough work, which inherently possesses minefields for us all of unresolved stuff. (Stuff= stories that got baked in pretty good before we knew we were in an oven...) This book is about taking care from a place of power–from the inside–when doing what must be done. Yet, there are ways to make the process for compassionate for all. I only became a hospice chaplain later...but the book benefits from that perspective as well.
A Hospice Chaplain's Field Guide to Caregiving: Finding Resilience on the Frontlines of Love
Caregiving is dangerous work, and it changes you. As my mother’s primary caregiver in her final eleven years, and subsequently a hospice chaplain, I understand the life and death stress of constant vigilance, interspersed with long periods of daily tedium.
How do we survive this? It’s a lot to be able to simply keep your balance. The Field guide offers 31 gifts built from experience in my trenches of love. These are not tactical How To’s but rather practical (and perennial) principles to support, renew, and strengthen you from the inside out. They will help you make better decisions that fit your family and situation—and fewer missteps. They are accessible and actionable and even a bit humorous, (because we have enough serious in our lives… Am I right?)
The Hospice Chaplain’s Field Guide to Caregiving is bite-sized & useful. It is a compendium on the cyclical nature of sorrow and the bridge to the next right thing. Joy will come around again; it’s possible to shift to healthy survival in these caregiver trenches with a few gentle gifts. It is even possible, here, to have vitality and renewal. It is my hope that these thirty-one gifts will support you and renew you in this best and hardest journey anyone may walk with another.
From this place and nature, is support for you as a caregiver (or the stressed-out-caregiver in your life) ...in the tough and tender places of love—the front lines of illness and health.]