Christmas Day
It was Christmas Day 2021.
My mom’s usual caregiver showed up and ensured she had breakfast and made it to dialysis. I was assured a different caregiver would ride with her home on Paratransit and ensure she got into her apartment (she was in a wheelchair, unable to push herself) and had dinner before laying down for the night.
Around 5 or 6 pm, she’d finished dialysis and was boarding the Paratransit bus, when she called and said with her voice cracking, “Tiff, I’m by myself.”
Shocked and pissed, I started calling the company that provided the caregivers to say, “Hey! y’all said someone would come. I could’ve made other arrangements. She can’t go in alone” and they said they had no record of someone else being assigned to her, even though I’d been given a name, and apologized.
At this point, it was a crisis because I wasn’t in town, and neither was my brother and it was Christmas Day.
A couple of months earlier, and because the company’s caregivers usually called out on Saturdays, I started looking for a carefiver who could work weekends and evenings if needed.
Although the company really came through during the week, my mom’s weekday caregiver was EXCELLENT, when someone would call out, that meant no breakfast, no meds, and the possibility that my mom would refuse the much needed help whenever it arrived.
So Saturdays had become the crisis day. It was on a Saturday that a caregiver, after I’d given explicit instructions, gave my mom too much insulin and my sis in law and I found her on the floor, unresponsive. It was a Saturday when I went to my mom’s house and discovered food had been left in the oven, burning, and no one knew. That same day the caregiver bought her a lemonade that spiked her blood sugar to 400+.
So luckily my old HS bestie, Jazmine, recommended a friend of hers, Kesha, who was an excellent caregiver. When she was with my mom I felt like I was there. After managing her care for the week it was nice to be able to relax some weekends knowing that Kesha was taking care of her.
So there we were, Christmas Day, a Saturday, and it was happening again. My mom was arriving home shortly and there was no one there to receive her.
So on that Saturday, Christmas Day 2021, I was simultaneously stressing, praying, texting Kesha and almost begging the paratransit people not to leave because Kesha was on the way.
At one point, while on the phone with the Paratransit driver, I could tell Kesha had arrived.
Kesha said, “Hi Carolyn how are you?” and my mom said, “Better now that you’re here.”
I was relieved.
And while my mom was on her way up I thanked the Paratransit driver for waiting with her and right before we got off of the phone the paratransit driver said, Merry Christmas.
It was that moment, and ones like it, that have me FULLY convinced that ALL things work for our good! ALLADEM! God is always on time, even when it hurts.
Grateful, thankful, and blessed by the best.
Merry Christmas!