Letters to the Editor: '2023 - A year I will give everything within me to raise a voice for carers'

(Editor, Meath Chronicle)

Dear sir - Through the broken glass I can no longer see, there were shadows before, those shattered pieces of who I once knew..

Slowly you are stripped away, left bare, tired to your ageing bones, broken but your gnarled body keeps carrying through.

Care, to be a carer, self care is no longer there.

No one chooses to be a carer, yet life throws us challenges that we must rise and take. A loved one needs a family member to be their first, morning, midday, night. To be their hands, feet, their voice, their support.

A world you once belonged to, a world you shared, now you sit at the other side, through the glass you see your life pass by.

Day by day, week by week the glass stains, the once clear pain now dense with grime, the shadows gather and shade your view.

Shaded until you can no longer see the reflection of you, looking back is someone you are sure you knew, but now a stranger...

Carers, an asset to the State, yet the state sees a burden. We are left to dwell in our homes, left without the care we so badly need.

Means tested, forgotten, never appreciated, yet if the tables turned, we handed the care to the State, where would you turn to?

Overcrowded hospitals, resources bursting at the seams, little to offer yet in our care so much to gain.

2023, the Year of the Carer.

A new year, a year that again I do not make resolutions but a year I will give everything within me to raise a voice. To bring every Carer with me , to show the state the valuable care we gift everyday..

C arer

A ppreciation

R recognition

E quality

R enumeration.

Yours,

Tracy & Willow Carroll, Fordstown.