So our family made a film. You might have come across it, or seen it. It's a homegrown Aussie Documentary called, "Everybody's Oma". It's a delicate story to tell, private, personal and raw, not something everyone wants to 'put out there'. But it's an important story to tell, it represents so many of us who are carers, who have infallibly looked after a loved one, putting others before ourselves.
Our particular story is about how our little family took care of Jason's mum, Oma. It tells all, the hard parts, the beautiful parts, the hilarious parts and the super awkward and confronting parts. The founding part, the part that kept putting us back together, was always love. Everything we did together as a family was about love.
Oma resided in her cosy granny flat at the top of our stairs, and lived with Alzheimer's and Vascular Dementia. She lived and leaned on us for almost 5 years, before she needed to move into a care facility to keep herself safe and us from falling apart. We took care of her, while she taught us how to be patient, sympathetic, kind, strong, humble. She was our teacher.
Oma died peacefully in February 2022 and things have never been the same. And they don't need to be. As a family we had the most incredible couple of last years with Oma, it's everything she wanted, and we were happy and honoured to share them with her.
Now we've shared Oma's journey living with Alzheimer's on screen, Jason and I are offering an opportunity to reflect and share our experience as carers living in a family ecosystem. We have created a 90 minute keynote and/or half day workshop. It's chilled, it's real, it's just all about how we made it work, where we screwed up (and accepted it), how we can make the system better (by not changing the system), and instil hope in each other that we can look outside ourselves and find a capability to give and love so very deeply to others.
The briefing notes for our offering are below. Check it out, ask me questions, get in touch. This offering is perfect for peer support groups, organisations with real heart, organisations investing in their people culture requiring real stories, and organisations that want to inspire their people. Enjoy. Megan xxx
Finding_Hope_outline
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