The word for the week - collaboration. Per the dictionary, "to work with another person or group in order to achieve or do something."
The sort of collaboration that comes to my mind is the amazing collaboration I've experienced for years with my very first grannie client's family. They are different genders, hold a range of interests, live in a variety of states, span quite a few years. But when it comes to their surviving parent, they snap to & make themselves available. When they've had discussions about next steps in their parent's care care, they've had conferences with the staff where she lives, had out-of-town sibs on the phone, and (most remarkably) included the parent. It is such a pleasure to work with a "best practices" set of children who understand embrace epitomize collaboration.
Thinking back, can remember a lot of families that exhibited those same qualities in giving support to an older or dependent member. Would love to clone them!
Recently, a young acquaintance pulled up stakes from the town & utterly charming home he'd lived in for many years & returned home to care for aging parents. Yes, he, of all the children, was best suited to be their on-site support, but he siblings are involved to, in their own ways. They collaborate, but he has the greater share of responsibility. He seems an exceptionally good son, and that brings its own reward.
My mind goes to my cousins, who held regular conferences about my uncle's welfare. This, in spite of the vast distance the oldest had to travel. When it came to their dad, they bonded in a common trust of loving support.
It's easy to see all the times this isn't so, all the families that can't get past differences or downright fall apart when someone needs helping hands. My own family is an example of a lack of collaboration. Hard to fault my sibs for typically choosing to stand back or offer support when & how it suited them.
Took decades to realize how right my sister-in-law was when she wrote that what I did for Mom was not exceptional, that they all did their part. They DID everything that Mom wanted of them, because she never expected nor seemed
to desire them to do anything. They did their part, played their role. I just didn't get it.
For most of my life - maybe forever - a family dynamic has each of the older sibs off on their own orbit, irked & aggravated by a baby sister endlessly trying to corral everyone into a cohesive whole made up of diverse personalities. Took me eons to realize that while such a thing is possible - differences, yet collaboration - it wasn't in this case, with these people.
It wasn't that my sibs shunned drawing together for a greater good. Chalk that up, at least in large part, to Mom. Not many years before she died, mom came to see the importance of letting children see you as a human being; that idea never dawned on her earlier in life. So, when she did, in her late 80s & early 90s - reach out for support, the older kids just couldn't identify that with good ol' Mom, who were comfortable with her treating the older USA-based children as natural dependents & moi. Collaboration was neither on their radar or in their dictionary.
How sad that my family's experience is too often the experience of many families. How wonderful that my experience puts me in a place of compassion for those families, for understanding it's not necessarily an intentional lack that blocks the way, but could be ancient patterns & expectations.
The pity isn't that my family couldn't get our act together to be there, as a united front, for Mom. It's that the rest never grasped that EVERYONE seems to benefit that come from being present, even when it is difficult - maybe, especially if it is difficult. Maybe you have to experience it to understand. Mom & I were blessed - in her late 80s, we read & shared responses to Still Here, by Ram Dass; looking back, am smiling, realizing how little we got what he meant by the outcome of giving up a sense of obligation or guilt over dependency & let - on both parts - the moment be about service.
It's not just the person receiving the care who is benefited, but each & every person lending support. In fact, the gifts only accessible through just tender energy & efforts are greater than the ones they give.
From the time I was in my teens, it was clear how a lot of people take up careers that addressed unresolved or bothersome issues in their own lives. Many the psychologist went into practice because of personal hurts or harms, the son or daughter who went into medicine after a beloved parent died, the students who train to be the caring teacher they never had.
That's me & preaching the secular doctrine of collaboration. It matters to me to do everything possible to help ensure every member of every family gets all the benefits that can flow from being a reliable presence when needed most.
Sure there's a downside to collaborating. It is not easy. The friends who conference about their mother, the young man who left his treasured digs & friends to care for aged parents, the relatives who regularly huddled over my uncle's future - all frequently find themselves challenged, even frustrated bothered irked by the demands. Yet, they continue to put themselves on the line.
To this day, I am sorry for my sibs. Not because they couldn't, for whatever reason, be there for Mom. Sorry because they miss all that flows from heart-felt collaboration.
When family comes together - collaborates in spite of differences, past ancient or active hurts - they gift more than just their loved one. Something beyond description is touched & that touch ripples out in ways we can't imagine.
Collaboration - when we make the time & invest the energies to be there, as a group, for a loved one, the universe opens up & invests energies in each of us.
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