Love Giver - Excerpt from Mark Shriver's Book, A Good Man | Maria Shriver | The Open Field Network

Love Giver - Excerpt from Mark Shriver's Book, A Good Man | Maria Shriver | The Open Field Network:

JUNE 5, 2012

ALZHEIMER'S AND CAREGIVING

Love Giver - Excerpt from Mark Shriver's Book, A Good Man

By Mark K. Shriver

You learn that your parent has Alzheimer’s, and you keep hearing this word: “caregiver.”

I grew to hate that word. It was inaccurate, belittling, and fell far short of the job requirements. You can summon the patience to be an Alzheimer’s caregiver only if you care a lot, care with all your heart and soul and guts.

The practical demands are so relentless that your impulse, sometimes, is to flake out, flail, and fall apart.

You have to care for that other human being on a primal level, apart from seeing them as your parent. You have to love them as God’s creation, part of God’s grandeur, despite it all.

You have to leave your ego and your own needs at the door. You can’t be a caregiver; you can’t look at it that way. You will fail. You have to be a love giver.

I struggled for a long time before understanding that this is the only way to succeed (if