Sharing the Caring

We don't understand each other. There are so many things caregivers don't really understand about the very people they are caring for. To be fair, the cared for do not understand many things about their carers either.

When I used a manual wheelchair my mother would push me out of the way, facing toward the wall. I talked to an actor who played a woman in a wheelchair. She told me people on the set often placed her facing the wall, too. What was intended to be helpful was actually seen as thoughtless. Why would we want to sit facing the wall? It felt as if we were just being put aside. Even the actor who was fully capable of walking was pushed aside because she was in a chair.

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