This post originally appeared in the Cameron Herald on 2020-01-16.
Many people my age are trying to figure out how to care for aging parents with retirement staring them in the face. Some of us have already dealt with those issues. Some have it all sorted. Some don’t know where to start.
As this column goes along, I’ll talk more about helping elder parents—or ourselves—stay at home longer and remain more independent while doing so. Today, I just want to introduce myself and say a word or two about my new company, Hearts, Homes, and Hands.
As you can tell from the byline, my name is Ernest Lee Bruns. I’m a junior. I chose to retire from the corporate world several years ago when I was caring for my father, who was in the last stages of cancer.
Dad taught me a lot about perseverance and tenacity. He always said, “Don’t let that old rockin’ chair get you.” He didn’t. He planted and cared for forty acres of corn the year he died. He was 92 years old, and this was his second bought with cancer. When he was in the hospital for the last time, he was more worried about his corn than anything else. The first thing he asked when he came out from his final round of chemo was about the yield.
When the doctors allowed him to go home to die, my nephew Chris and I knew we had more on our hands than we could handle and still do this wonderful man justice—even with the help of hospice and home health. Chris hired a personal assistance service to help with bathing and other needs.
I’m proud to say Dad died at home, surrounded by people who loved him and cared for him. He could look out his bedroom window and see the house where he was born 92 years before.
When Sue Ann and I started planning how we would wind down our final years without putting an undue burden on the kids, we were surprised to find out there wasn’t a state licensed and insured personal assistance service (PAS) around. From where we live, the closest ones were in Bryan/College Station or Temple. Standard has the home health and hospice support covered, but if we needed help staying at home—help with housekeeping, running errands, cooking, bathing, and so on—we’d either have to ask the kids to give up part of their lives or hire someone privately.
When you hire individuals, you’re responsible for their unemployment insurance, for their medical bills if they get hurt in your service, and for finding a replacement if they fail to show up. None of this is something we wanted to do while we were struggling to take care of ourselves or each other. You have enough on your mind at that point without worrying about finding someone to help your loved one get to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
We called my niece Kathleen to see if she wanted to help us start a PAS. She had been the administrator of the PAS Chris hired to help take care of Dad and had more than a decade of experience running a successful PAS in Victoria. She and Chris fell in love and got married the year after Dad died, but that’s another story. She came up to Cameron; we came to agreement; and Hearts, Homes, and Hands was born.
Hearts, Homes, and Hands is licensed and regulated by the state of Texas. We are responsible for providing the care you need. We’ll be there for you, even if the person originally scheduled has a “family emergency” or something and can’t show up. We cover their workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance if they get hurt and do everything necessary to ensure your peace of mind—at least with regard to caring for yourself or a loved one.
And the bottom line is this: I’m not just an owner of the company, I’m a client. We take care of you like we take care of our own—in this case, Sue Ann and me.
