Carer Quotes

“And sometimes
when she does remember,
she calls me her little angel
and she knows where she is
and everything is all right
for a second or a minute
and then we cry;
she for the life that she lost
I for the woman I only know about
through the stories of her children.”
― Rebecca Rijsdijk, Portraits of Girls I never Met

“She wipes her forehead with her wrist
She's just back from a double shift
Esther's a carer
doing nights

Behind her
on the kitchen wall
is a black and white picture
of swallows in flight

Her eyes are sore
her muscles ache
she cracks a beer
and swigs it

She holds it
to her thirsty lips
and necks it
till it's finished.

It's 4:18 a.m. again.
Her brain is full
of all she's done that day
She knows
that she won't sleep a wink
before the sun
is on it's way.

She's worried about the world tonight.

She's worried all the time.
She don't know how
she's supposed
to put it

from her mind . . .

- Europe is Lost”
― Kate Tempest, Let Them Eat Chaos

“... I was suddenly looking at everything—the Cottages, everybody there—in a different light. I was now one of the ones leaving, and soon enough, everyone knew it.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go

“But codependency is inappropriate, over-the-top loyalty, caring and supportiveness.”
― David Stafford

“Being a carer is about making mistakes. Like a mother who learns the ropes of motherhood with her first newborn, a carer learns on the job and more often than not gets it wrong.”
― Vanessa de Largie

“And all I want to do is tell her that she should have no shame, but for some reason I choose not to. I do the tasks impassively, as if she were a mannequin, a non-human. And that fucking shame is all mine.”
― Brian Conaghan, The Weight of a Thousand Feathers