St. Bede's Cares for the Caregiver

To the right, Megan* unleashes on a sister who continually urged her elderly mother not to live by herself, then took her all of four days one year while Megan was left to handle the rest.

To the left, Gina* laments the adventure that is making her 91-year-old gourmet cook mom a meal: It's always bland.

But in the middle, a breakthrough: Deborah* beams about clipping her fingernails so she could find the chords on her guitar for the first time in ages.

Craig Jennings hears this and smiles. Since April he's been encouraging these rants in the fellowship hall at St. Bede's Episcopal Church as part of his program, Caring for the Caregiver.

A business coach by trade, Jennings created this support group for caregivers after going through his own ordeal with wife Annie, who was diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago. All of a sudden Annie, who wanted to do the shopping, couldn't. Jennings, who would've rather juggled flaming swords than price peanut butter, was forced to do so.

"You start off from the premise of, 'Gee, I can make a wonderful difference in the life of someone I love,'" Jennings says. "After awhile you realize, 'This sucks.'"

Jennings credits an oncology social worker, Sandra Whitley, with helping him deal with many of his issues. He still lays claim to the caregiver moniker, as his wife has developed emphysema. But he's dealing with it better this time around. When Annie can do the shopping one day a week, he considers it a victory. In that spirit of seeing the positives and being able to express the frustrations, Caring for the Caregiver was born.

"I figured if I could put together a program, it would be worth it because I wouldn't want anyone to get blindsided the way I did," Jennings says.

Jennings, a Port Washington resident, has been developing the program there for the past three years. But a business encounter with Roger Schilling, who's on the Bishop's Committee at St. Bede's, brought Caring for the Caregiver to Syosset. The April Caregiver's Fair at St. Bede's was attended by 82 people, a victory considering how infrequently caregivers allot time to themselves.

A Caring Circle now meets on the first and third Wednesdays of the month at St. Bede's. Between bites of cheesecake caregivers share that some prescription drugs can actually be cheaper out of pocket, depending on the insurance plan. Deborah earns golf claps at one point when she announces that she scheduled appointments to deal with three of her own health issues, something that regularly gets lost when all the focus is on another.

Jennings says far too few people are getting this kind of support. But he and the Bishop's Committee want to change that by expanding the program to other Episcopal churches on Long Island.

"The Bishop's Committee is very bulldog-ish about this program," Jennings says. "And we're going to make it howl." 

* Names were changed.

For more information log on to www.caringforthecaregiver.org or call 516-921-0755.