Happy National Caregivers Day, 2020!

In the USA, the third Friday in February is designated as National Caregivers Day. This year, it's today - February 21! The first National Caregivers Day was February 19, 2016. The Providers Association for Home Health and Hospice Agencies (PAHHHA) founded the national day of observance in 2015.

Their goal was to create an annual date for caregivers to receive appreciation and recognition each year. 

You won't receive any cards or cakes for National Caregivers Day. You won't be handed a box of chocolates or a new diamond ring either.  If you did, you would have made it or bought it and wrapped it yourself. 

That's the thing about caregiving, it's for someone else, usually someone we love.  And that's because caregivers learn, over time, how to derive deep satisfaction from a smile, a meal eaten by our loved one, washed hair, calmed anxieties and memories shared.  We don't need gifts of chocolates or diamond jewellery to understand how our loving acts are needed and hopefully appreciated (although we'd never turn down those earthly gifts, of course!). 

National Caregivers Day is an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of our caring lives and to thank ourselves, not for being perfect, but for being the best caregivers we know how to be. (And to thank another caregiver, too!)  Caregiving is the core of what is most meaningful in life - our most intimate relations with those we love who are vulnerable and need our care.  Caregiving teaches us all life's most important lessons.  Eventually, after years of giving care, we become wise elders - that is our reward, and it's a rich one.