Season for Caring, Sandra Stephenson: Lifetime caregiver losing vision as kidneys failing
"I've always just cared for people," said Sandra Stephenson.
In her Northeast Austin home, she is constantly looking over at the man she's cared for during the past 19 years. He has autism and is nonverbal, but she asks him, "Isn't that right?" when she talks about what their day is like.
She talks about how she taught him to use the microwave to heat up his lunch, how they once went on a cruise with his grandmother and her foster son, who also had autism, how the house was decorated to double as a day care, which she ran for about 25 years. Now, though, she's tickled by the small transformations she's making to the living room to give it the feel of a contemporary hotel lobby.
"Isn't that right?" she asks. He just smiles and rocks, but he's paying full attention to her and the stories she's telling of her life as a caregiver.
Her mother had a stroke when she was a child. She remembers being 4 years old and frying eggs and bologna to feed her mother. "I was always having to take care of somebody," she said. It made her stronger. "I always say I'm a survivor."
When her mom died when she was 11, Stephenson, now 66, got bounced around from family member to family member. Her father wasn't really in her life at that time. "They just kept passing me around like a piece of merchandise," she said of her aunts and uncles.
There was a lot of "bad stuff" going on, she said. "My mother would turn over in her grave if she knew what I was having to deal with."
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By the time she was 15, she felt like: "I have to get pregnant and married. That's my only way out."
Her brother connected her with a man who was 21, "you can have her if you want her," Stephenson remembers her brother saying.
She got married and had her daughter when she turned 16.
While the marriage didn't last, her daughter "was absolutely perfect," Stephenson said. "She's a strong female like me. That's how I brought her up."
Caring for people is just who Stephenson is. She earned her high school equivalency diploma and then her associates degree in child development. She estimates 80 to 100 kids came through her doors those 25 years as a day care provider. A few still come by to visit.
She became a foster mother, including to a child with autism and another child with cerebral palsy. Her father came to live with her in his last days with cancer. She became the home school teacher for two of her three great-grandchildren.
Now, in addition to the man for whom she is a caregiver, she has to take care of herself, too.
Stephenson has diabetes and kidney failure. Each night, she hooks herself up to a dialysis machine in her house for about nine hours. She has a cart so that she can wheel the machine and its tubing around the house, but mostly, she sits in her comfy chair in her bedroom once she's hooked up to the dialysis machine.
Four years ago, she stopped being able to drive. She is losing her vision because of the diabetes. She remembers it was Dec. 11, 2018, and she was coming home from taking her foster kids for a visit with their father. "I started feeling really bad," she said. Everything became blurry. "Lord, if you just get me home, I won't ever drive again."
She hasn't. She misses being able to go where she wants when she wants. She relies on friends, her daughter and church members, but she doesn't like to rely on people. "I'm working on my patience," she said.
What she does have patience for: Day after day, she wraps box after box with Christmas wrapping paper. Her church, New Covenant Church in Cedar Creek, is creating gift boxes full of presents for kids up to age 14 in a program they call Operation Christmas Gift. The goal is 1,500 boxes this year.
"I just can't stop," Stephenson said. "Right now I have a zeal. I do not understand it. It's something I've got in my head."
She just has to care for someone.
More:Read more Season for Caring stories
Sandra Stephenson's wishes:
A second opinion diabetic eye disease specialist; home improvement including electrical repairs, an accessible outlet, window replacement, flooring in the dining room and kitchen, exterior painting, kitchen wall paneling removal, interior walls painting, accessible kitchen cabinets and drawers; new kitchen counters, new kitchen backsplash, a longneck kitchen faucet, a gas stove; dishwasher, refrigerator, freezer, countertop icemaker, garbage disposal removal; a redone backyard including new deck and staircases, screened-in patio, fencing and gates, tree removal, heat and cold tolerant plants, raised garden beds with garden bed enclosures to keep pests out, a new shed, chicken coop and chickens, a new outdoor playset, a pond with a waterfall; a front yard archway; gutters; front-door lighting; mosquito extermination; an older foster dog; windchimes; full-size sheets and comforter; full-size electric blanket; new kitchen chairs; an elliptical; digitizing photos; tablet; Bluetooth speakers; membership to Audible; security camera system like Ring; Capital Metro bus passes; Uber and Lyft gift cards; Christmas wrapping paper, bows, gift-wrapping tape; a pedicure or gift card for a pedicure; professional Christmas display; gift cards to Home Depot and Lowe's, H-E-B, Target, Luby's, Red Lobster, Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen and Hook & Reel; passport renewal fee; and a train trip to Canada in the autumn of 2023 with sleeper cabin and bathroom.
Wish list available on Amazon.
Nominated by: Interfaith Action of Central Texas, 2921 E. 17th St., Building D, Suite 3, Austin, TX 78702. 512-386-9145, interfaithtexas.org.
Its mission: Cultivating peace and respect through interfaith dialogue, service and celebration.
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This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Statesman Season for Caring, Interfaith Action of Central Texas, Sandra Stephenson
