Making Waves In the Currents of Care

"If you are silent about your pain, 
they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
Zora Neale Hurston

This is, my last year as a caregiver, a journey I began to support  the survival of loved ones. 

My journey in caregiving,
was successful. The quality of life improved for my loved ones through advocacy and my dedicated efforts to establish consistency of their care.

However, the quality of my life was compromised for the same reason advocacy was needed for the survival of my family members.

The health care system is not just broken.
At times it presents as a hazard,
especially for women,
of color, most definitely in relation to regions wherein tone policing elevates to calling the actual police.

Born and raised in the Texas, I have little to no memory of southern discomfort.
The grandness of the state fairs, the impeccable quality of barbeque and tea and pies and . . .
is all I recall from my birth state.

I was eager to return and reminisce on my youth, but the moment I landed my father was hospitalized.
I assumed the role as his advocate. A role I successfully navigated for years in California.

But, Texas was different.
Advocacy tor consistent and consideration for the care of my father was met with resistance, ignorance and most recently violent acts of harm to everything I value:
Firstly, the right to enjoy the priviliges of my inheritance as heir apparent to resilience.

Caregiving, for me, was never about monetary gain.  Connection of that which was broken offered a personal benefit  

This was the first year, in nearly a decade wherein I was actually paid for my advocacy and administrative care.

This was the first year, I personally experienced the prejudice of presenting oneself as a Caregiver.

Prejudice of family caregivers, specifically,
carried a curious, ease of classism and condescending
practices both unprofessional and dangerous.

The impact resonated beyond the medical facilities and into our home.
Our family’s relationships were always tenderly tied, as they are worn by years of distance and the damage of untreated mental health needs unmet.

Therefore, any persistent invitations to encourage conversations about care concerns were tempered easily by tampering and tugging at triggers

From 2022 = 2023, we lost:

5 IPHONES
4 IPADS
3 Desktop IMACS

To be clear, this was in response to several acts of advocacy to improve the safety and security of the home for my elderly father, the safety and security of his vehicle and the health and well being of my mother for the brief period she was able to reside in our home - now believed to be a health hazard.

This year,
is my last as a caregiver.

This is my ritual of process,
a tribute to Care,
as a catalyst for developing as a person and understanding my purpose is integral to every step of my path. 

The intention of my care journey was advocacy. In 2015, an alarming succession of health crisis  resonated through our family.  General diagnosis of their individual conditions were common and need not be considered dire.
Yet, survival was threatened and quality of life compromised. Years prior to the racial awakening of 2020, I experience the first wave of unconscious bias as a predatory to people of color.
For our family, it began to surface as access to quality medical care within federally, well  funded care systems.  For a period of time, my protests for consistency of care and practice required the same dogged determination.
Be it a chronically, unhoused sibling or an honorable veteran of 30 years in service, identity was an influence. 
These crisis gifted my consciousness awareness of influence beyond societal and into the personal. Value is a principle best rooted in the core of our being.
At the time, the familial bonds were broken by distance.  My connections to my family were known, yet unfamiliar.  

Therefore, my decision to care was conscious and carried the intention of building connection to mend the distance toward middle ground.

My mind, body and spirit are in alignment to graduate and grow from the experience through processing the emotion of the experience. 
Through Care, as an immersive act I confronted the harshness of my inner critic and inner child through making  connection and choosing to replace absence with presence.

 presence with a paren and benevolent curator refined my soul have graduated through this humbling, rewarding and heartbreaking immersive into understanding the state of care
in the world,
in our country,
and for me,
in my family.

Health crisis arrive with a resounding crash in every family. My soul sensed an inevitable detour full of challenges.
Specifically, with my father, I felt conflicted emotions around disturbing wounds for which I’d successfully worked around and the excitement of feeling seen.
The eagerness of being a grown woman, independent, educated and thriving and developing her dreams into reality entered caregiving with the delusion of satiating deficiencies planted by his indifference.
My inner child is parentified, petulant and petrified by the fear of rejection. So, she develops abilities to people please.

And at 40, my journey into care began with intention to nurture parts of my self.  My volunteering to delay living the life I had built over decades was done, unconsciously for unconditional love.  

Caregiving is always a labor of love,  because for the giver it carries the intention of directing the flow to and or for the purpose of becoming something more. 

Looking back over those years, I understand the deficiency were influenced by adult decision in my youth.  My determination and commitment were meant to champion my loved ones, including the inner child.  

And the journey was invaluable to my personal growth.  The void I felt is rooted in value of self. The ache of believing the responsibility to care for the needs of others was the true distance - the wound healer is a story of legend for Carl Jung’s Caregiver archetype.  

The year prior to this cycle of understanding Care, I purchased the limited addition of Jung’s Red Book to honor the duality of art and psychology degree.

Through revisiting his work and doing my own, a shift occurred disrupting the alchemy of my mind, body and spirit.  Balancing the demands of care, of self within the dynamics of complicated family dynamics s a challenge, in itself.  Coupling the injustices of experiencing racism, colorism and classism within a system meant to promote healing not harm creates catalytic energy. 

For me, it is the conscious awareness the time has come to integrate my lived experience of CARE. 

Therefore, my decision to care was conscious and carried the intention of building connection to mend the distance toward middle ground.

Currently,
my course in miracles, 
years of fierce advocacy and dedication 
to my family and their wellness future was stalled ... by my life, my needs for support and empathy - preferably both. 

Every family is different, but for us,  southern born African American, Care is an integral component of our history.  

Our ancestors are the caregivers and caretakers whom nurtured a nation. While American history credits the fairest as the founders of the freedom,  wealth and power that defines our country - it omits it’s true laborers.

My ancestors were the first care apparents. Gender spared few from the expectation of bearing the weight and responsibility of ensuring a quality of life and legacy of wealth was built on their backs.

Generations past the damaging demands of care expectations akin to slavery, women of color continue to dominate the domestication and care industry. 
In my own family, caregiving is occupational, cultural and inherent. The empowerment espoused as contribute to the health and wealth of family is something I resisted as necessary to the trajectory of my future. 

So, I purposely chose a path of choice. This meant marriage, children and minding others not apart of my plans for the future. 

My becoming was to birth a calling - comprised solely of my following self as compass.  Through education all guides and tools necessary for my being a descendent, dairing to develop a life wherein care did not overwhelm possibility and potential. 

A life cycle of nearly 9 years would pass by before I realized,
burnout is a spectator sport of sorts.
Folks, known and unknown, would permit me to implode for multiple reasons -
mostly an inability to understand how not responding in a manner of kindness or relief is
inhumane and cruel.
Caring, I have learned is akin to being a deeply aligned with both humanity
and the infinite wisdom and love of knowing self as spiritually connected to something far greater than being.

. . . self care is something I had to learn to do while caring for others.

Fortunately, for me, the gift was inherent. But first, I had to unearth it.

As a woman,
southern born
As a black,
As a black woman.
southern born, my lineage is abundant with care: the givers and the takers whom nurtured bloodlines of their own while securing accredited to the birth of our nation.
Our blood, as descendants of Black American Slaves, is in the root for every law, advancement of industry, commerce, creativity and ingenuity associated with AMERICA.
Balancing the self, within care is about knowing the value of self as caring.

Friends, whom distanced when this journey began, often return, as I happily expected them to do because they were true, good friends. Mine was usually a notable, marked departure from their life because I no longer belonged.

When my father got sick,

then my sister, homeless recovered was discovered as sick,


then my mother, uncovered,
the cause of her sick,

all of it began in late 2015.

at this time, my life shifted into the truth of my life, one that differed, slightly - or perhaps more honestly, a forced integration of my past reality with my present.

The contrast of my journey to my peers at the time was not fully known or understood, perhaps because it was not considered as significant by myself.
As a black, southern born woman, with a strict religious upbringing by a blind, disabled mother and a father whom was curiously unconscious of the severity of his absence in my life and nor the burden of being the child of which he remained barely present while completely abandoned to my older siblings. They felt a way about me due to a history I barely understood but spent a lifetime distributing myself as tribute, as resource, as retribution.

My feel good fund filled in every gap of need in my family because I decided early in life, I would not become a caregiver - at least not officially.
than my own free spirited, deeply spiritually (defined as defiant) minded, creative and educated person.
military father happened to become a free, spiritually self defiant, creative living in Los Angeles with a double masters degree awaiting her debut at the Mayor’s Gallery at City Hall thanks to cosmic crossing at her attempt to have a ‘real job’ as an Lyft driver.

of my past in order to influence my present. And, as I round the ending of this cycle, I am empowered by the possibility within my future.

(Note, I was a silver chin hair away from 40 when I became a Lyft driver. The privilege was returned after 20 years of not having a drivers license for no other reason than it being unnecessary in New York, San Francisco etc. I applied as way to relieve my father of doing pick ups at LAX for his wife’s, my stepmother’s funeral at 38. The last license I’d had was 18 and the state just granted me a new one . . . because of a kind woman named Barnaraba, - this was also my step mother’s name. ).

The Care Appparent

Being different for my generation of Black, simply required expressing interests outside of non traditional African American culture. Curiousity was the siren of my becoming - a typical characteristic of a double Sagittarius however it would be years before I would permit myself to explore anything esoterical or hard core metal, gothic.

Still, my mother noticed my preferences and found a way to support my searching for self. My mother was so powerfully, considerate and protective of my difference in my teens, I hold onto the memory everyday as I navigate her care now. Nearly everything I know about care, about love, about faith, about belief in oneself was instilled by my mother during this time…. when we had nothing, but each other.

When she felt me drifting away from her beliefs as gently as I could fearing her seeing it as a betrayal rather than my growing up. My mother knew I would not become a Jehovah’s Witness - not because I did not values of the faith. I wanted a world wherein I could develop and test my own.

Although a chubby, awkward, smart and kind weirdo whom participated in clubs and activities wherein wholesome was plus, I also gravitated toward culture of every kind accessible in Colorado Springs. This meant, classic rock, light goth, hair bands and art - specifically photography.

I had no crew, but the few whom she’d meet were eclectic. Particularly, we crossed path at the mall and I lingered near an empathetic gay goth named Seth. His gear was nowhere near anything I’d wear, mainly because of my pretty in plump sizing. For safe measure my mother said to me:

“You do not need to become a punk with a piercings and such. Being Black is your rebellion. It is enough and you are very visible.”

Make it

Later, I would realize my rebellion became my rejection or indifference to my inherent birthright of caregiving.
My intention was not to be childless or unmarried - my life goal was to be free, emancipated with the freedom to follow my curiosity unencumbered by commitment.
Somehow, I knew to value my mind and its willingness to embrace wisdom through different ways of being as important.

Still I carried caregiving within my soul as a means for survival because it has proved true, both in my life and my ancestors. As generations of caregivers and caretakers, the nature of being human on earth meant minding this truth throughout many ages wherein we were either not seen as either human nor our existence as vital to the ecosystem. Perhaps because, our purpose, was to set a standard of possibility of capacity for the individual to care, to love and to do so knowing the benefit as something far more substantial than financial - sustainability, survival, community as a care network.