Personal assistants are good, bad, fun, boring, necessary, its everything in life.
To have assistants around you can be incredibly special. We go through bad and good things together.
Imagine to be my assistant when life is hard. To stand by my side when my world falls apart.
For the assistants it requires a lot of skills.
They must be invisible when its needed. They must go through days with me that are filled with emotions that are so negative and hard. They must deal with it after work.
I try to always talk about what have happened.
Its important to go through it together so no-lose ends are messing around with them. They are a part of me, they feel what I feel.
For instance, I had to have a personal assistant with me when my father passed away.
Imagine to be that assistant. Imagine staying there and be strong, helping me with everything I need help with. To go through that a person are dying and it’s the first time you maybe ever seen a person that sick. Its maybe the first time you see a person dying. Its maybe the first time you see a dead person.
When my father died it was an incredibly beautiful time.
I stayed at my mother and fathers house for a couple of weeks, together with my assistant.
My father was not in pain, though he had cancer in his spine. He was sleepy and could not get out of bed. We put his bed in the living room at the ground floor so that he always was together with us.
I often sat beside him, talking about things that have happened in his life, in my life. Talking about small and big things in life. My assistant was also there, she took part of our conversations.
She joined our talking when it was okay, when the subject was not so private. She got to know my dad in a personal way. She enjoyed talking to him and he enjoyed talking to her. We had a lot of good times together.
During those weeks she got involved with the rest of my family to. My mom, my sister, neighbors to mom and dad.
She took part of us helping dad with everything, cleaning him, getting him dressed, gave him food. Making his last time in life a good time.
The day came when it was time for dad to leave us. It was summer, warm, calm, and in the morning when we woke up, we all know and so did he.
My sister and I told him it was okay to go, my mom told him it was okay to go. And he just passed away. Calm, quiet, easy. He just left us.
Imagine to be that assistant. She took part of a thing that was extremely private. She have never in her life been close to a person with cancer and never even thought about being there when a person die.
But now it happened.
In my role as her boss, I had to take care of her and her emotions. I had to put my own feeling aside.
Of course I was incredibly sad, of course I cried, of course I was totally upside down inside. But at the same time, I had to help her through it.
When dad passed away, he stayed home with us for many hours. We dressed him, we talked to him, neighbor’s come and say goodbye. It became a day filled with tears, memories, laughs, sadness but also good feelings because everything felt so normal.
Dying is life.
When they come to pic dad to the funeral place everything got so quiet.
I took my assistant with me outside for a walk. So, we walked and talked. Walked and talked. We sat down beside the little path, me in my wheelchair and she on a stone. We cried, we talked more and more and more. We talked about her feelings, my feelings, we talked about everything that had happened. Its like going through a debriefing that firefighters do after a hard, touching work.
We hugged, we cried together and after a long time it feelt calm, safe, comfortable. The strong emotions was there but in a not so aggressive way. We lay the emotion puzzle together and got it to be a beautiful picture a special experience.
When back home at mom and dads house, we sat down together with the rest of family and they expressed there thinking and feelings for her. I could see her shoulders getting lose, her body calmed down and all of us got so sleepy.
She gave me strength when I needed it and I gave her strength when she needed it. It was special and we both grow, individual and together as a team.
I don’t think that people even think about that a personal assistant can be a part of something like this. But its my life, they are working in my life, they are a part of me and that refers to both the good and the bad sides of me and my life.
My assistants have been with me through death, sickness, when I got to be a victim for crime, when my son got problems with drugs, when my body get weaker and weaker, when I moved, when my pet died, when my family totally fall apart and was left totally alone. They have been with me building up a new life, trying to help me put myself together after family trauma.
They have been working with me when my grandkids have huge problems.
They are with me in everything.
I admire them for being able to stand by my side.
I admire them for keep on working with me.
I admire them for growing so much as they have done.
I admire US for being US. For being such a good team in good and bad days.
I will come back to the good parts, but I think I leave it like this now. Its important for me to let others understand how important it is to work as a personal assistant, a care giver. I want other to understand that it’s a work that can be boring, funny, interesting.
Its to give life to a person that cant live it fully by her self.