Gary Barg, Editor-in-Chief
Next month, I do something that I haven’t done in a long time (please, no personal hygiene jokes). I get to spend the day with my favorite folks in the world, family and professional caregivers, at the first in-person Fearless Caregiver Conference in 2 years, 4 months, and 18 days (but who’s counting?)
The event will be in Delray Beach, Florida and as I always do, I intend to start the day with one of the most important aspects of a family caregiver’s life– Humor. Humor will get a caregiver through the most challenging situations. The humorous stories I like to tell all come from the lives of our readers and attendees. So, in other words, from your lives. And I am sincerely grateful for every single story and true anecdote that you share through caregiver.com and at the events.
I consider it my job as somewhat of a Caregiving Johnny Appleseed spreading your funny wisdom from city to city. I always give the credit where due, (but do take the bows!) The only thing is that I haven’t been collecting stories in these years off the trail and I look forward to sharing some new chuckles with the attendees. If I use the same old chestnuts, I fear that returning attendees will get to the punch lines before me.
So, I need your help. The next Fearless Caregiver conference is on July 14th in Delray Beach, Florida and I want to go loaded up with brand spankin’ new stories. And this is where you come in. Please send me the humorous caregiving story that you’d like to share and I’ll do my darndest to make ‘em laugh.
Unlike the event in Florida a few years ago, where I was retelling one of my favorite stories that was sent in by a reader of this newsletter, and a gentleman stood up and let me know in no uncertain terms that I was telling it wrong. It happened to be his story I was mangling! I’m no Shecky Green, but I promise that I will do justice to your anecdote or story.
One of my favorite humorous stories came from a social worker named Claire who attended a Fearless Caregiver Conference many years ago. She told a story about her days as a trainee when she was working at a long-term care facility. These were the days before Naomi Feil developed Validation Therapy, which encourages validating the beliefs of those living with mild dementia (as long as they are not harmful to themselves or others). In other words, respect their beliefs as opposed to arguing with them.
In this case, our intrepid social worker in training was told by her superior to approach a resident who would stand in the corner for hours talking with her husband Harry. The only problem was that Harry had passed away ten years earlier. The supervisor wanted Claire to make Mrs. Smith understand that Harry was not standing next to her.
Claire didn’t want to do it, but she approached Mrs. Smith and told her in no uncertain terms that Harry was indeed dead. Mrs. Smith nodded in acknowledgement and then turned to her right and stated, “You hear that Harry? She says you’re dead!”
Please join Claire and donate your humorous story now. Please use the comments box below