Sisters of St. Benedict offer day of reflection for caregivers on April 26

Author Debbye Butler is shown with a copy of her book, Patient in Affliction. (Submitted photo) Click for a larger version.

By Mary Ann Garber

A caregiver is someone who helps another person by providing loving assistance with their daily living needs.

The caregiver might be a family member, nurse, doctor, chaplain, social worker, hospice staff member or volunteer.

But who takes care of caregivers who often work long hours and frequently sacrifice their own needs for the good of ill or elderly relatives or patients?

The Sisters of St. Benedict of Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove offer an annual day of reflection for caregivers at their Benedict Inn Retreat and Conference Center to help support and encourage women and men who take care of others.

Presentations will address ways to reduce stress, and offer advice to better assist the people who help people in need.

Author and caregiver Debbye Butler of Indianapolis is one of the speakers for the seventh annual Caregivers Day from 8:45 a.m. until 3:45 p.m. on April 26 at the conference center, located at 1402 Southern Ave. in Beech Grove.

Butler wrote Patient in Affliction after caring for her mother, who was terminally ill and died at age 70. The book fulfills a promise that she made to her.

“I’ve been writing and editing professionally for some 35 years, but I consider this book the most meaningful and important project of my professional life,” she explained. “The title is a play on words right out of the Bible [from] Romans 12:12, which tells us to be joyful in hope, patient in affliction [and] faithful in prayer.”

Butler said the National Family Caregivers Association estimates that 50 million people in the U.S. serve in some capacity as a caregiver each year.

“I’ll always miss my mother, but what an honor for me that God should put me in a position to be her in-home family caregiver at the end of her life,” Butler said. “The memories we made when it was just the two of us at home—the laughter and daily doses of ‘I love you’ that we shared—illness and death can’t steal such precious gifts.”

One of the Ten Commandments reminds us to honor our parents, she said. “It’s my prayer that I did just that, especially at the end of both of my parents’ lives when I was in a room alone with each of them at the very moment God called them home.

“Easy? No,” Butler said. “Would I do it again? In a heartbeat! I bet many other people who have been caregivers would say the same thing. And I think they would also agree [that] this is a life-changing experience.”

(For more information or to register for the Caregivers Day on April 26, call the Benedict Inn Retreat and Conference Center at 317-788-7581 or log on to www.benedictinn.org. The retreat fee of $50 includes lunch. Butler’s book, which sells for $13 plus $2 for postage, can be ordered online at www.debbyebutler.com as well as at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. She will sell her book for $10 at the Caregivers Day.) †