An Act of True Love can Thaw a Frozen Heart


THE POWER OF FAMILIAL LOVE

We had our scholars' meeting today.  We watched the film FROZEN.  I realize that there are a lot of things we can learn from this cartoon movie: about sisterly love, estrangement and isolation, about sacrifice and about finding your true powers and setting yourself free.  Let me share the lessons we learned:
  1.  Elsa originally hid her powers to protect Anna from getting hurt, not realizing that in the process Elsa was hurting herself with isolation.
  2.  In the end, the bond between Elsa and Anna was so strong that despite their estrangement, Anna gave up her life to save her sister Elsa.
  3.  Elsa became free when she accepted herself and her true powers, and this was the new sexy.
  4.  Anna was so deprived of love that she didn't really know what true love was.  What she experience with Hans was infatuation.  She needed to know her true worth and be reminded not to talk to strangers.  She needed to learn that "true love waits" and that an act of true love will thaw a frozen heart.
  5.  We learn about selfless love from Olaf, the snow man:    Some people are worth melting for.
Reflecting on this movie, inspiration hit me about how difficult it is to have family members who get sick.  In the Philippines, a patient cannot survive hospitalization without a caregiver or family member close by.  This caregiver has a lot of roles to play, like buy medicines, pay for bills, help in nursing and comforting the patient.  A caregiver has to be of sound mind and good health to survive the rigors of being a watcher.  I've seen how some caregivers get tired, and some even get sick as well because of sleepless nights, endless worries and irregular eating habits.  How much are we willing to sacrifice for our family?

My uncle Juju was recently admitted in the hospital for a severe asthma attack with pneumonia.   I had to make sure there was someone there to stay with him when I was at work.  Thankfully he was discharged at the end of the week.  I wonder how it would have been if he had a chronic disease which drained the family of time, energy and resources.  This is when I thought about compassion fatigue (can also be coined "bantay fatigue" locally) and how it can be prevented.

Compassion fatigue is defined in the dictionary as indifference to charitable appeals on behalf of those who are suffering, experienced as a result of the frequency or number of such appeals.  This is often used to describe professional health workers.  We fail to consider that caregivers of family members are also at risk of compassion fatigue.  You see, much of the estrangement between Elsa and Anna (in FROZEN) stemmed from Elsa's fear of hurting Anna.  Caregivers need to appear "strong" for their patients.  Sometimes they hide the exhaustion they feel and become isolated to a point that they too need help.  How do we help caregivers cope to prevent compassion fatigue?

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