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The crucial Ways and Means Committee in the Senate and the Finance Committee in the House has passed the Kupuna Caregivers Assistance Bill, Senate Bill 534 (House Bill 607). I want to thank our elected leaders for advancing this important bill thus far and urge them to say YES to it again in the full chambers.

During my lifetime in Hawaii, I have been an employee, a business manager, and a business owner. I am asking legislators to please pass the Kupuna Caregivers Assistance Bill because I know how much it would mean, both to businesspeople, and to people looking after beloved family members in their home.

I’ve been there, and then some.

My testimony is not typical, but my story is not unique.

As someone who was married to a woman for over 30 years, a woman who was 20 years my senior, I write as one who has gone down the rabbit hole and emerged on the other side somewhat intact. At least intact enough to share a perspective you don’t always hear first hand. People who have gone through this kind of experience usually are so damaged, depleted, and unhealthy, that they can no longer advocate for themselves, much less for others.

Caregiving Challenges Hurt Businesses And The State

As a caregiver, under duress, more accurately, in desperation, without respite, I made decisions that cost the state of Hawaii hundreds of thousands of dollars.

As a business owner in my 50s, my prime, I closed a business, shut down three cell phone stores, laid off 15 people, and stopped a cash flow that paid the State excise taxes, employment taxes, and income taxes for over seven years.

I was a business owner trying to cope with the day-to-day stress of a wife with Alzheimer’s Disease. I had no time to pause, rest, or step back from the pain of losing the mind of the woman I loved, much less, plan for tomorrow. For tomorrow the tragic path does not get better. Nothing really prepares you for the impact of the freight train called Alzheimer’s.

When I think of the years I spent looking after my wife and mom before they both passed away, it feels like I was a passenger in a car that was hurtling backwards.

Panic sets in. You stretch your foot forward to press down on the brake. But you can’t. You aren’t in the driver’s seat. You have no control. Events just take over and you try to cope as best you can.

Under duress, with no respite, I did my best.

We sold our home in early 2009 at the bottom of the market, just to stay afloat. I failed to take care of myself, ballooning to almost 300 pounds, endangering my health and my life. I wondered then: who would take care of her? Who would take of me? The expense to the State would be high, and unnecessarily premature.

I glad that the legislature is taking seriously and advancing a bill to give family caregivers some respite. Please act now.

The $70 a day for family caregivers to hire trained home aides for respite, will definitely help families with seniors who cannot perform some of the functions of daily living, or are unable to manage on their own safely.

There were days when I would have welcomed that kind of modest assistance. Every day. It would have made all the difference, to have had respite.

At one point my mom who was then in her 90s and my wife then in her 70s, spent their last days in the same care home, at great personal expense.

I sincerely hope legislators understand and can put themselves in the position of caregivers like myself. As responsible family members, our desire to care for our loved ones may cause us to make irresponsible decisions, and do irreparable harm to ourselves, our families, and our communities, as well as the state revenue stream.

As caregivers, we push ourselves through love, and devotion. We neglect our own needs. We sell our assets and our parents’ assets. We put our health on the back burner, and we sometimes take on irresponsible levels of debt. But we don’t care.

We need to tell ourselves that we have done our best.

I welcome a policy that will allow family caregivers to pay for trained aides for a little respite.

The state needs to adopt the bill that is before them right now, even if it isn’t the perfect solution. We have to begin somewhere, and now more than ever, with all the turbulence in Washington, it’s time we find local solutions for local problems. I trust our legislators will heed the call to do their best for our kupuna and their caregivers in Hawaii and say a resounding YES to this modest legislation.

We all need to be able to tell ourselves that we have done our best.