Maria Shriver

Love Giver - Excerpt from Mark Shriver's Book, A Good Man

By Mark K. Shriver

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You learn that your parent has Alzheimer’s, and you keep hearing this word: “caregiver.”

I grew to hate that word. It was inaccurate, belittling, and fell far short of the job requirements. You can summon the patience to be an Alzheimer’s caregiver only if you care a lot, care with all your heart and soul and guts.

The practical demands are so relentless that your impulse, sometimes, is to flake out, flail, and fall apart.

You have to care for that other human being on a primal level, apart from seeing them as your parent. You have to love them as God’s creation, part of God’s grandeur, despite it all.

You have to leave your ego and your own needs at the door. You can’t be a caregiver; you can’t look at it that way. You will fail. You have to be a love giver.

I struggled for a long time before understanding that this is the only way to succeed (if that is the word), the only way to survive.

Many years into Dad’s steep decline I realized that it was his example of love giving that sustained me. The only difference was that he did it for thousands, even millions of people— people with developmental disabilities, impoverished human beings all over the planet, his grandchildren, his wife, his staff at his office.

The man was full of so many cares, and yet they rarely coalesced into anxiety or anger. He remained joyful and full of love.

That type of caring, let alone loving, didn’t come naturally to me. I was overwhelmed by the unpredictability of the disease. I remember, two years before he died, arriving at church one Sunday morning, late as usual. Dad was sitting in the pew we usually sat in, waiting for us with Susan, his assistant.

I shuffled in with the kids, heads all bowed low in a vain attempt to go unnoticed. Jeanne went in first, the three kids next, and I plopped down next to Dad. His eyes were closed, tightly. I don’t know if he was snoozing or deep in prayer, but when he realized that we had arrived, he let out a loud “Hello there! Good to see you!” The people in the surrounding pews all smiled.

The Mass went on. Dad struggled to stand up and sit down at the right times, but he succeeded nonetheless.

He blew his nose time and again— this had become one of his Alzheimer’s habits, and that day it agitated me. I sat in silence, disgusted by the dirty tissues in my pocket and worried that the germs on his hands would somehow touch me and I’d get a cold.

I hated the fact that I was worried about his germs, but I didn’t want to get sick and didn’t want the kids to get sick. It would just make my hectic life more complicated.

Halfway through the sermon, Dad put his hand on my knee. I let it sit there for a few minutes, staring at it. His fingers were short and a bit stubby, thick from arthritis but beautifully manicured.

These were the fingers that had given me countless back scratches as a kid and as an adult. God, I’d always loved those back scratches and begged for them not to end.

After a few minutes, his fingers moved a bit— was he giving me a tiny rub, or was it just some twitching of his fingers, something he had no idea he was doing?

It lasted for about a minute. Then he moved his head and looked at me. I’ll never forget his eyes— they were smiling. He looked down at his hand on my knee and then looked at me.

“I love you,” he said.

He put his head on my shoulder for a bit. He lifted his head, leaving his hand there on my knee. I looked over at him; he smiled at me again and then looked back at the priest.

A few weeks later, Molly came home from school and nonchalantly handed me a piece of paper. I read what she had written on it:

I am smiley and joyful
I wonder what God looks like
I hear the waves crash on the ocean
I see a bouncing tennis ball
I want peace
I am smiley and joyful
I am smiley and joyful
I pretend I am a i sh when I swim
I feel the sand on my feet
I touch my grandma’s hand
I am smiley and joyful
I am smiley and joyful
I understand others feelings
I say the truth
I hope for the best
I try my hardest
I am smiley and joyful

I couldn’t stop staring at her, marveling at her wonder of God, her desire for peace, and that stunning last stanza. My daughter was a younger, female version of her grandfather!

Dad was still smiley and joyful, still loving me in the best way he could— he was still loving me despite his Alzheimer’s, despite old age. The keen insight in her poem made me more aware than ever of his profound commitment to me even now.

It was around this time that I finally started to put to rest all the nonsense that had always driven me.

Keeping up with the Kennedys, working like my life depended on it, trying to understand the fame, power, and tragedy of this family I had been born into: I was beginning to realize how little any of it mattered.

I had to become a love giver. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was the only task that mattered— for Dad, and for my own future.

Join the conversation: To celebrate the release of Mark's book, we're giving away three signed copies of A Good Man. Tell us what you think of Mark's caregiving journey -- or share your own -- in the comments section below and we'll include your name in our drawing. If you're reading this post on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or email, please leave your comments here. We'll select names on Friday.

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A Good Man by Mark Shriver is available for purchase at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and wherever books are sold. To follow Mark's book tour, visit the book's Facebook community.

Mark K. Shriver is the senior vice president of U.S. Programs at Save the Children in Washington, D.C., and a former Maryland state legislator. Shriver also started the Choice Program and served on the coalition to create the National Commission on Children and Disasters following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. He lives with his wife and three children in Maryland.