My mission in life is to enjoy it, learn from it and leave it better than how we found it.
Eli Shaw was born in 1948 and grew up West Warwick, RI as Robert Eli Kershaw Jr. His parents and his Grandfather, Arthur Kershaw Sr. had a profound influence on who he was to become.
His grandfather told him once, "If you come upon an opportunity, look at it, study everything about it, chew it up and spit it out. If it still looks good, do it. If you do it you will know if you will succeed or not, and you will have learned something either way. If you don't you will never know." In his book you will understand better why it worked for him.
Eli now works with Washington County Mental Health Services and has been a PCA for one young man for twenty plus years.
His mission in life is to enjoy it, learn from it and leave it better than how he found it. This is evident with his commitment of taking on the role of father to his son Homer who you will read about in the book.
It all began in 1958 when I was ten. A young family had just moved into the neighborhood. One sunny summer day while I was sitting on the steps to my house, a young boy came up to me and rolled his ball to my feet. With the sun in my face I said hi and rolled it back. He ran off. A few days later he did it again. I eventually became friends with him. I told my mom that a Chinese family had moved into the neighborhood and their son, Charlie, was my new friend. She said, bring him over for supper. I did and after supper he left and my mom told me a story about people who have something called "Mongoloidism", now Down Syndrome. I became his mentor to protect him from the bullies and I got beat up more than he did. He suddenly left and I vowed that I would do something in my life that would change that bullying attitude. This book is about the sixty years since that time where I made good on my vows. It is a group of chapters that comprise the ah ha moments in my journey as a caregiver all over the world. I hope you enjoy and are enlightened by my story.