I wasn’t going to write about this incident because it made me feel judged and pretty crappy. Then I realized, I’m not alone, and most caregivers are made to feel like that aren’t doing enough from casual onlookers who don’t understand what it’s like.

It was my aunt’s birthday and it was the first extended family function since we returned to my hometown. First person I ran into was an old friend of mine. She and her husband were close with my ex-husband and I. He got them, when we split.

I wasn’t expecting flowers and balloons when I saw her again, but I also wasn’t expecting her to make me feel like I was wrong in the way I look after Jim. She looked at us walking up the driveway with my mother and seemed to make a snap decision about my caregiving abilities and took over… in full sight of my family and my ex who is still a close friend of several of my cousins. Which made me feel like crap.

It’s not like I wasn’t already overwhelmed enough with worry about how the family function would go down. I have a huge family and this would be the largest gathering Jim had attended since he retired in 2017, pre-dementia. He’s normally social, but lately his filter hasn’t been working well, and he can be rather inappropriate. Plus my hands were full with flowers for the birthday girl and food for the buffet table.

My old friend is a very caring individual and like me a natural caregiver. In retrospect, she probably didn’t mean to make me feel bad. Still…

She swooped in and took the platter from my Mom’s hands and then offered her arm for my mom to help her walk up the driveway (My mom walks upwards of five miles (not kilometres) a week, she did not need help) and then my friend gave me a chastising look because I wasn’t helping Jim to walk when he was obviously struggling.

While Jim does require extra care, he is also more than just his illness.

This is a man who was 4th in charge of a multi-million dollar company. His one request has always been for me not to make him look like an invalid in public. He pushes back when he perceives me ‘babying’ him. Even when we’re getting groceries, he makes me walk ahead of him. When I try to walk beside him he stops, until I start moving again. When he stops, he gets very unsteady on his feet. It’s a no-win situation.

Having me take his arm to walk him into a room full of my family would have embarrassed him. I stayed as close as I could without halting his forward momentum. But it felt like I was being judged for not doing more.

The rest of the day went well. Jim still remembers that he went to this function and that he had a great time with people constantly coming up to talk to him. Even though he has no recollection of why there was a gathering or who was there.