Direct Care

It’s a beautiful thing when someone is good at direct care. If you have a chance to observe it’s like watching ballet or a sporting event where the player always knows where the ball is going to be. A good direct care worker has the same instincts. They know all the right things to say, are always one step ahead, they have the coffee ready in the morning, the cigarettes ready in the afternoon, dinner cooking, the meds on time, a schedule for the showers in mind, the phone on the left ear for the person calling out and the right ear for the person asking if they can go out, the left eye on the person whose had the bad day and the right eye smiling on the person who had the good day. It’s not surprising that many of our best direct care workers are also mothers and fathers as many of the same skills translate to our work. I have stood in awe as staff whirled around me in the morning at a group home; the universe in perfect order, every need anticipated before it was articulated. I saw the same watching a manger work with a client at the hospital recently. This delicate dance where each movement was anticipated before it happened. The client leading her the perfect partner swaying to the rhythm of a beat only she could hear. We have many staff like that rarely heard from because things don’t go wrong on their shifts; they are for the length of their shift in perfect step.

There is a beauty too in watching a manger manipulate their schedule, knowing their personnel, watching the overtime, knowing the needs of their residents…although this often occurs in a fingernail biting session of anxiety as fatigue sets in and the shift looms near. The shift (or shifts) now takes on the appearance of certain doom, a haunting shadow certain to ruin one’s very life! The tragedy! The disappointment! All is not right with the universe the schedule does not work! Calls! More Calls! Batten down the hatches! Wait! Who do we call? Is there anyone left? And then the waiting the minutes like hours; the ticking like thunder even on the digital! The day now a complete ruin, sugar is not as sweet, joy has left the building and is certain to never call again. How could life do this to me!!!

And then a person calls and they say yes! We collapse in sweet relief another crisis averted and a certain guilt that we had not more to give. We have so little to offer in return, so to all the managers who make the calls and the magic people who say yes (and I keep thinking this Bud’s for you) Thank you! Thank you! Thank You!