John Miller

My first run in with caregiving began when I was only 11 or 12. My family moved in with my grandfather to care for him. He had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, and in the beginning this illness requires very little care but as it progresses further and further my grandfather needed more and more help in every area of his life until it got to the point where it was too much for my mother and father to handle while working and raising kids. I didn’t have much direct experience with caring for my grandfather, but I saw just how taxing emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually this was on my entire family, and how heartbreaking it was to make the decision to send my grandfather to a facility when my family could no longer properly take care of him.

Several years later, in 2019, I began attending Texas A&M University-Commerce where I started helping care for a good friend of mine who has Cerebral palsy and is wheelchair bound. Several college buddies and I all banded together to make sure he had all the care he needed but we were admittedly all pretty spread thin on time and money with all the responsibilities we had in college. As some of our friends inevitably graduated, we had less and less help but always trusted in God to provide. In this time, I really had to come to grips with the reality that for many people who need care if no one steps up to give them the care they need they have no choice but to go without their most basic needs being met. Such as eating, bathing and using the bathroom. I took this as a call to answer God and say here I am Lord, send me. Somewhere in this time I went from someone who was reluctantly doing care giving duties because I knew it was the right thing to do, to having a passion for serving my friend and making sure that he knows I will always drop what I am doing to make sure his needs are met. This is where much of my passion for being a part of The Bearing Together Project comes from. We created a college community where we bore one another’s burdens and made sure everyone’s needs were met, care givers and care receivers alike. In this community we built strong lifelong friendships and encouraged and lifted one another up. Most people who give or receive care are not fortunate enough to have this kind of community let alone avoid burn out and receive adequate care.

My passion for The Bearing Together Project is to create a community like the one I have been blessed with on a larger scale for care givers and receivers anywhere.