Looking Back On Life — Do You Hold On To The Love? Or To The Hate?

As a caregiver, I have learned a great deal from the elderly individuals I care for, which has helped me make informed decisions. Their lives became my manual for life and the decisions I make.

All the females I work with have many regrets. When they go back, pain is what most of them bring back to us caregivers and their families.

Working with Nancy was painful for me and everyone who went there. She recycled workers. She was mean-spirited, racist, thoughtless, and cruel. She cried daily because she missed the love of her life, Bryan, who died of aggressive lung cancer about four years after he returned from the Vietnam War. She never remarried.

Being in the war, what he saw or did, he couldn't live with himself. He drank and smoked himself to death when the children were young. She fought daily with him when he came back, trying to get him to stop smoking and drinking, instead of trying to figure out why he was acting the way he was. She didn't think twice that his behavior was linked to the casualties of war, contributing to his addiction to Alcohol and cigarettes.

PTSD probably wasn't linked to soldiers yet.

They had two children. The daughter stayed away because of how horrible she was to her. She loved her husband, and she hated him. I see hate from her more than love. I often wondered, "Was she ever happy with him?"

This is how she lives as if he had left footprints on her heart.

She said he is the love of her life, but frequently forgets the love he shows her. He made his son promise to take care of her. She took advantage of his love for her, as he denied his only child his time to be her father. His wife suffered in silence as he made time for his mother, but not much for her and their only child. She lived as if her husband had broken her heart by dying.

While her son's wife lived with pain on the inside and outside of her heart.

Hatred allows cruelty to grow, thrive, and destroy, and many humans still contribute to it. Are we that unaware of our destruction- Annelise Lords

If she had taken a moment to think about his behavior, she would have understood that something was bothering him. Something was wrong. Why was he drinking and smoking so much?

Humans drink to bury something. His return from war was when hell started.

Understanding could have saved his life.

Mary's husband took such good care of her that when he died, she didn't know how to live her own life. She had to learn to live again, and she did. She sends love out into the world daily, allowing it to flow.

When I started taking care of her, she would enjoy the breakfast they would have together every morning, listening to his favorite music. The same for lunch and dinner. She slept tucked in with his favorite comfort and blanket. She watched his favorite shows, surrounded by his books and other favorite things that reminded her of his love. That love evaporated over everything she did, and it flowed like water after a drought, feeding everyone and everything that came her way.

Her kindness and love were a miracle. She held on to that love and let nothing stop it, and her family did the same.

Isn't this bbbeeeaaauuutttiiifffuuulll. I am sure their marriage wasn't perfect, but she chose to remember his kindness and love.

What if Nancy had chosen to remember her husband's love for her instead of the hate from the pain he brought back with him?

Mary was good to me. She made no demands and helped create a loving and comfortable work environment that allowed me to feel welcome and appreciated, allowing me to give her my best. She missed her husband greatly, but focused on the love and kindness he had shown her. She died more than four years ago.

Nancy is still alive, creating hell for those aides, her son, and his family.

Mary taught me the value of love, and she passed away. I experience the pain of hatred from Nancy giving me the power to choose love.

When you look back on your life, what do you hold on to, the love, or pain and regret?

My heart chose love because hatred adds nothing good to humanity.

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it.