When I went away for my week's holiday at the beach, I asked a homeless single mum with three children if she would house-sit for me.  I have to tell you, the house was immaculate when I returned, and they had obviously respected my request to keep my own room off limits (personal papers, etc) and everything was in apple-pie order.  In addition, they left after I came home because they were not comfortable staying in what was now my territory once I was back.  (Kids to their father temporarily, the mother to the refuge while she continued to apply for rental houses.)

I had a bad conscience about continuing with the house-sitting plan after Don had expressed deep opposition.  Well, I need to tell you that it was all resolved before I went away.  I had a long talk with Don and told him about the lass and her studies and the financial blow that had led to her predicament, and I also said that I was wanting her to come to the nursing home so that he could meet her and her children, because I knew that if he met them personally he would be quite happy about the arrangement.  She couldn't do that, but Don listened to everything and in the end it came down to trust -- he said he would trust me and trust my judgement and if I thought it would be OK then to just go ahead.  And when I came back he wanted to hear all about how it had gone, but with interest, not suspicion.

So it comes down to trust, but it also reminds me how vulnerable and disempowered a disabled person really is.  Because, I could spin the facts however I wanted, I could have left out bits that didn't fit in with how I wanted it to sound, I could very well have never mentioned the house-sitting arrangement at all and gone off for a week leaving him completely in the dark.  Could have been completely manipulative but with the best of intentions.  And he would never have known.

I wonder if the hardest thing of all for a person like Don -- all his life an activist, a doer, and could always be relied upon to make a decision -- is being so disempowered, so left out of the real decision-making.  Caregiver Patrick made the comment on my blog that "thinking" for somebody else is one of the hardest things about being a carer, and I am beginning to realise that this is true.