Welcome To The Compassionate Neighbourhood!

For a long time now, I have been thinking about two ideas: compassion and neighbourhood. As the mother of a 23 year old young man with severe disabilities and as the daughter of a feisty 89 year old mother, I want to know how compassionate action taken in neighbourhoods can make people of all ages healthier and communities more connected.

Let me tell two little stories. The first happened when my husband Jim and I moved back to Ottawa from our diplomatic posting in Washington, DC in 1987. We bought an old house on a leafy street and the same day that the moving van arrived, so did my neighbour with a casserole and a cake. "Gosh....thank you!" I couldn't think of anything else to say - no stranger had ever presented me with homemade meals before. The tiny white-haired lady smiled and said, "We live across the street and we saw that you were moving in. We just wanted to say welcome!"

The next story happened last year in London, where my husband and I were posted until we returned to Canada a month or so ago. Because Jim was the Canadian High Commissioner to the UK, we lived in an official residence with staff. Our house manager, Stephen, came into my home office one morning and immediately, I could tell he was upset. Every morning, Stephen caught the train into Victoria Station from his seaside town in Kent. On this particular day, his walk to the station was disturbed by the sound of a woman crying for help. Stephen stopped and after a few minutes, was able to identify the source of the plaintive cries. It was an elderly woman calling out from her window, "Help! Someone tell me what time it is! What day is it? Help!" Stephen told me that he spoke to the woman and learned that her husband had recently passed away. She was confused, distraught and alone. "Our country never used to be like that", he said, "We used to know our neighbours and help them."

What happened to change our neighbourly behaviour between 1987 and 2011?

Since my son Nicholas' diagnosis of cerebral palsy 23 years ago, I have been a disability activist. But recently I have become convinced that we need to look at CARE as something that spans all human life, across ages and across abilities. In Canada, a lot has been accomplished in making lives better for people with issues of ageing, disability and childcare. But those constituencies remain separate in their political advocacy efforts.

I know that there are seniors who look after their infant grandchildren. Those seniors may eventually need the same daily assistance as my son to get dressed in the morning. Everyone has or will have care needs. Of course the shrinking budgets of health and social care are a big part of this discussion, but so are the compassionate acts of neighbours.

In this blog, I am going to be talking about what works in my neighbourhood for those who need care and those who give it. My topics will be about care and kindness, innovative ideas that help families capitalize on their resilience and of course, government programmes that help or hinder the wellbeing of our children, seniors and loved ones with disabilities.

Welcome and as Joan Rivers would say, "Let's talk!"