If you have read my bio, you know my life of care and advocacy for the elderly began over 30 years ago, when I was 17 years old. I had a life changing experience in that nursing home that I wrote about earlier this year for Great Places Inc.

I like to share my story and experience because it causes people to think differently when interacting with the elderly. My experience all those years ago set forth how I treat and care for seniors, and how I direct my staff at Visiting Angels.

Throughout my career I have met and cared for well over a thousand seniors. My life has been significantly enriched by spending time with the elderly. I believe because of my nursing home experience all those years ago, I provide care with a great deal of empathy.

There are professionals providing care and their are professionals doing a job, two very different aprroaches. My story and experience provides a special insight to the elderly we care for. It cause people to at least take a second to think about who they're caring for.

I think about patients I have cared for years later, I wonder how they are, if they're still with us, how their lives were beyond when I knew them. I can remember patients names I cared for in the nursing home in 1977.

Here is my story and experience about a lady--I'll call her "Ann"--who couldn't speak or do anything for herself. She quietly lay in bed day after day. Ann never had a visitor, so I knew nothing about her.

One evening our assignment was to clean our residents' closets and drawers. While I was working in Ann's room, I found a box. In it were no less than 30 letters and cards. I sat on the floor and started to read them, tears falling from my eyes. They were love letters from a husband to his wife. Never had I known, or even heard about, such profound and amazing love. This woman, lying there alone, seemingly unloved, had actually shared a fairy tale love, rare and amazing, with an adoring spouse.

It was through these letters that I got to know a patient who couldn't tell me anything about herself. Learning about her life allowed me to have a special relationship with her. As far as I knew, her deceased husband was all she had, and now I felt more responsibility to care for her, for him.

From time to time I would read his letters to her. I don't know whether Ann could understand--or even hear--anything I said, but I felt that her spirit heard and understood.

My three-decade passion has been based on empathy. Can you imagine being in Ann's shoes? Can you understand what it must be like to have lived a fairy tale life with a best friend, experience a love like no other, only to lose that person and decline to the point where you're alone and unable to care for yourself?

Ann's is not just one story. It's one of countless numbers of stories. There are thousands of elders living in nursing homes, alone and unable to care for themselves. What kind of care do they get when their healthcare workers know nothing about them, and don'tt even think about what their lives were like before they ended up, helpless, in a nursing home?

I know from my own experience that patients like Ann are not even talked to or treated with the compassion that is essential to providing good care. Instead, they're just work to be done rather than care to be given.

It is up to us as a society to understand that there is a person and a life Behind the Old Face, and to provide the care, respect, and dignity they deserve. Getting to know the elderly and their lives is extremely special. We do need to realize there is a story, whether they are able to share it or not. We need to provide the care, dignity and respect they deserve. When you look into the face of an elderly person, what do you see? Will you see things just a bit differently now?

I am currently authoring a book titled "Behind the Old Face" that I invite you to learn more about at www.behindtheoldface.com I believe if we change the perception of seniors we will improve the care and treatment of our elderly.

Working together to improve senior care is necessary and powerful. Please join those of us who's mission is to truly care and advocate for our wonderful elder population. It will enhance your life.

I am in the process of interviewing seniors for the book. If you or someone you know would be interested in being interviewed and photographed for possible inclusion in the book, please email me at angil@behindtheoldface.com.

To contact Angil Tarach with questions or comments email visitingangelswc@comcast.net or call Visiting Angels at (734) 929-9201