Every Home Is a Lesson in Life

Alpha Palliative Home Care Team, Kuttanad

Today’s home care visits to seven homes have left a deep weight in our hearts.

We met children and daughters-in-law caring for mothers in their 90s, despite the struggles of poverty, age and illness. We met a 90-year-old mother caring for her son, who is over 60 years, and suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). In the same three-member family, a 25-year-old graduate, talented in art and handicrafts, is also struggling with the emotional and physical burden of supporting the family.

We met an unmarried daughter who has put her own life aside to care for her bedridden father. Her small dream is simply to have a wheelchair that would help her lift him, make him sit and bathe him with less difficulty. She asks for nothing more.

We met a wife who has spent everything she could on her husband’s COPD treatment and now spends Rs. 8,500 every month just to buy oxygen. When emergencies force her to borrow money to take him to hospital, her words remain etched in our hearts: “I have only this little piece of gold in my ear left. Maybe I can use that for his treatment.”

We met Radhamma, who, years after losing her husband, continues to live in the home he built, holding on to his memories while bravely facing cancer.

An accident changed the beautiful course of another couple’s life. For the past four years, the husband has depended on others even for movement, yet his wife continues to care for him with the tenderness with which one would care for a child.

There may not be great comforts in these homes. But there is love, patience and a determination never to give up.

In every home, we saw something greater than the illness itself — the silent struggle of an entire family.

Pain that is never spoken…

Nights spent without sleep…

People who set aside their own dreams to care for someone they love……

Even amid the floods and natural calamities that frequently affect Kuttanad in Kerala, a beautiful region rich in waterbodies and paddy fields, these families continue to hold on to life with remarkable courage.

What initially feels like pain when we meet them slowly becomes a profound realization:

They teach us how truly blessed our own lives are.

We pledged ourselves once again: Alpha’s care should not end with medicines or medical treatment. It must reach the tears of the family, the exhausted hands of the caregivers, and the unspoken needs that often remain unheard.

After today’s visits, we return with a heavy heart —

but with even greater love, humility and responsibility.