
Embracing Gratitude in Dementia Care
Embracing Gratitude in Dementia Care


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Incorporating spirituality in dementia care, with scriptural insights and a blessing each episode.

Our Latest Episode
Key Takeaways
In this heartwarming episode of Granny’s Talk in Dementia, hosts Rayna Neises and Tonja Moon collaborate with The Grand Baby Projects to offer whimsical wisdom and support for caregivers of individuals with dementia. The episode opens with discussions on the significance of Forget Me Not Day, highlighting the beauty and symbolism of these flowers in relation to Alzheimer’s awareness.
The hosts share deeply personal family memories tied to flowers, reflecting on their own experiences as family caregivers. They introduce the concept of gratitude as a pivotal tool for caregivers, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a positive perspective amidst challenges. The hosts also share practical exercises, including a ‘Yes, and’ improv technique, to help caregivers cultivate gratitude in their daily lives.
The episode concludes with a comforting blessing from Isaiah, offering listeners a sense of peace and guidance in their caregiving journey. This episode is filled with touching narratives, valuable insights, and practical tips, making it a must-listen for anyone involved in dementia care.
00:00 Introduction to Granny’s Talk in Dementia
00:28 Forget Me Not Day and Flower Memories
01:51 Family Flower Stories and Green Thumbs
05:02 Caregiving Stories and Challenges
09:02 The Importance of Gratitude in Caregiving
18:06 Practical Gratitude Exercises
24:32 Gratitude Activity and Blessing

The Transformative Power of Gratitude in Caregiving
This is the article and free resource by Rayna Neises
Read more about improv and gratitude.
Transcript
*Transcript is an actual recount of the live conversation
[00:00:00] welcome to Granny’s Talk in Dementia. We are your hosts, Rayna Neises,
[00:00:06] Tonja Moon: And Tonja Moon, we are in cahoots with The Grand Baby Projects
[00:00:10] Rayna Neises: offering whimsical wisdom, inspiring support, and joyful encouragement for everyone involved in the dementia care journey, whether you’re a family caregiver.
[00:00:17] Tonja Moon: or a professional in the field. Each episode is designed to uplift, educate, and empower you as we navigate this caregiving life together.
[00:00:28] Rayna Neises: did you know that it was Forget Me Not day on November 10th? I love Forget Me Not flowers. That true blue forget Me Not plant displays. Clouds of tiny sky blue flowers. With those yellow centers and they’re perched on top of these really harry looking stems and they grow four inches to about a foot tall. And I just, it’s one of those flowers, it’s a perennial. So it self seeds and it blooms every year I adore Forget Me Nots and they are the flower that honors Alzheimer’s. So it always reminds me of my mom whenever I think Forget Me Not flowers.
[00:01:08] Tonja Moon: Yes. I stumbled upon them. I love one of my favorite pastimes is working in my yard and I get that from my grandmother and my mother and I, kind of stumbled upon them. Because I typically living in Texas only buy flowers for my yard that can withstand harsh Heat and sun with very little water. But the forget me nots come back year after year after year. And, I thought it was a weed, but it was so pretty. I just left them alone. And, I saw them at Home Depot and you could buy them. And I was like, oh, it’s not a weed. But, yeah, They’re just sweet, sweet, cute little gifts from God that he just pops up for us, you know, just one of those things he sprinkles around for us.
[00:01:51] But, my grandmother had a green thumb and, I think I get that from her, her favorite flowers though, were roses. She liked red roses. My grandfather, though, I think when I think of my grandparents and flowers, I think of him because his favorite were yellow roses and He was actually a long haul truck driver, so he would go on trips, for weeks and weeks or sometimes a month at a time. And, he actually had painted on the door of his truck, his 18 wheeler a yellow rose. And so every time I see yellow roses, I think of him. And of course, Nanny loves roses in general. She, she was one of the rose people before rose roses and mixing different seeds of roses or pollen was a cool thing. She loved roses of all sorts. So roses make me think of my parents for sure.
[00:02:57] Rayna Neises: Yeah, so I married the green thumb. I did not inherit a green thumb. Farmer takes care of it all, inside and out pretty much. I do really enjoy flowers. I have horrible allergies, so it’s, they’re nice to look at, but having them too close is not a good plan for me. Lots of sneezing and itchy eyes and those fun things. But my mom, I don’t remember my dad like treating my mom to flowers. Flowers. At all. Like not a part of my memory. Of course, mom was gone early in my life, but as a young girl, I don’t even really remember flowers being around a lot, but I sure love flowers. I especially love fake flowers.
[00:03:40] Tonja Moon: Listen, I said, I was never going to be the lady that planted fake flowers in my yard into like, after Hurricane Harvey, it just wiped out everything. And I quickly realized that, landscaping was so expensive. And so,, I’ve started using, fake flowers in my yard. And I think it looks great. I, I, I often wonder if my neighbors drive by and go, look, there’s that, that crazy lady with all those fake flowers. If they do, they’re very nice to my face, but, like it’s fall. But you know, in Texas, we don’t, we don’t really have seasons. It’s either hot or it’s not. And when it’s not, it’s still 80 degrees. And so like mums, okay. mums are not going to live here. People will buy them and put them out. I’m just kind of like, ah, well, my mums live, honey, because. They’ll be livin through it all.
[00:04:31] Rayna Neises: And I have the opposite problem in Kansas. Mums are beautiful, but it seems like they get frost pretty
[00:04:38] Tonja Moon: Oh,
[00:04:39] Rayna Neises: I’ll have a really pretty mum for a period of time on the porch and then. All of a sudden it’ll just start drooping and it’s because it’s gotten down to 40, 30 at night. Even in the fall, we can get 70 during the day, but 30 at night. We have that extreme temperature. That’s not always pretty for the fall, but we have the most gorgeous fall leaves
[00:04:58] Tonja Moon: Oh, I bet. I bet. I bet. We don’t.
[00:05:02] Rayna Neises: and leaves were one of the things, you know, thinking of my dad, he loved a manicured lawn.
[00:05:08] Tonja Moon: My grandmother
[00:05:08] Rayna Neises: so he definitely took a lot of pride in taking care of his lawn. So all through his progression of his disease taking care of and cleaning was really important to him. So he started with having to be almost OCD with getting the leaves out of the backyard.
[00:05:26] And then as that got to be too physically challenging for him, then he just focused on the porch. And I would often collect the leaves that he had swept up and put into little bags so that when he went back inside, I would scatter them over the porch again, so that he would have something to do the next time he noticed the porch. He would get the broom, get it all cleaned up. I would help him put him back into the bag and then I would use them again. And so we would have leaves well beyond when you should have leaves around the house because it was something that really gave him purpose. And that was so
[00:06:02] Tonja Moon: That is so interesting. It reminds me of a story with my grandmother when she was, in a skilled nursing community and I walked in to visit her one day and she got really upset with me because I did not tell her happy birthday and it was not her birthday. This is long before I knew anything about dementia. I began to tell her it wasn’t her birthday, which was a mute point. Then I went looking for the doctor, because I wanted them to fix her because she was obviously talking crazy. I got ahold of the doctor and I was like, I don’t know what you’re doing to her, but it’s just getting worse.
[00:06:33] And now she’s hallucinating. She thinks it’s her birthday. He was so calm and cool and collected it. And he just looked at me and he goes, so make it her birthday. And I said, you know what? You’re, you don’t even get what I’m saying. I’m like, I want a second opinion. And he was like, Tonya, this is part of it. Just make it her birthday. And I was like, Oh, this is just ridiculous. So the next day I brought her a happy birthday balloon and she was so excited. So we did the birthday thing for about three weeks. I actually got her a stuffed animal and I brought her the same stuffed animal over and over and over until one day I walked in and I was like, Hey, birthday girl. And she was like, what are you talking about? It’s not my birthday. And I was like, okay, well, I guess we’re past that stage. So that reminds me of the leaves with your dad. Yeah, we went through that too.
[00:07:17] Rayna Neises: I mean, you want to be honoring and respectful. It’s not like I scattered them out in front of him again, but it was just, I wanted them to reappear so that he would continue to be able to do that long past, the actual leaves falling from the two trees that were in the backyard.
[00:07:32] So it was a matter of really honoring that purpose, just joining in where they are. And it’s such an important thing. And can be really difficult because, you know, We think very black and white. And so that thinking puts us in a corner and we’ll put them in a corner and nobody does well in a corner. We all fight our way out. So we want to make sure that we’re joining them with where they are and helping to find those things that bring them joy and celebrate them over and over again, even if it’s leaves.
[00:08:00] Tonja Moon: Mean, it wasn’t a bad thing to go for almost three weeks thinking every single day was your Birthday
[00:08:07] Rayna Neises: Sounds fun to me.
[00:08:07] Tonja Moon: and everybody convinced every single day was her birthday. So, I mean, I don’t know who was the smart one, her or
[00:08:14] Rayna Neises: Exactly.
[00:08:15] Tonja Moon: she was.
[00:08:16] Rayna Neises: Oh, this caregiving journey, you often feel that way, don’t You It’s, do.
[00:08:22] Tonja Moon: I mean, I remember thinking well played Ruby. Well played, you know, and I remember thinking, I feel like I’m the tooth fairy. I just show up with something and so much of it is like that because you don’t know the day that they’re having, you don’t know really the day you’re having and on those days when your patients are wearing really thin because of just life, those are the days I think that It’s the hardest to meet them where they are because you just are exhausted
[00:08:50] Rayna Neises: Your tank is already empty.
[00:08:53] Tonja Moon: I want someone to meet me where I am with a cheeseburger and that never happened.
[00:08:57] Rayna Neises: Give me an ice cream sundae any day of the week.
[00:09:00] Tonja Moon: yeah, I mean it’s just tough. It’s just tough. And so we’re talking about gratitude and those are the times right now that I think it’s so hard to practice gratitude.
[00:09:10] Rayna Neises: It is. I agree. Joining them where they are helps us to do that for sure, but we definitely have to be intentional. And we’re going to talk here in a minute about an article that I wrote that gives us a tool to use, to be able to practice some gratitude and be able to take those tough times and see them from a little different angle.
[00:09:31] So hang on, don’t leave us. We’ll be back.
[00:09:34]
[00:11:15] Rayna Neises: welcome back. We were talking about gratitude month. This is the month to really focus in on gratitude. And I found this really cool tool that we want to talk about.
[00:11:25] Studies indicate that positive appreciative attitudes, they definitely contribute to greater success in all areas of our life, from our work life to our overall health and wellbeing. And definitely as caregivers, it can help us in our journey. Maintaining that consistent practice of gratitude can be really hard.
[00:11:44] Like we were talking about our attention often gravitates toward what’s broken, undone or lacking. And it kind of overshadows the abundance that we have in our lives. So to harness that full healing potential of gratitude, it has to really transcend the status of where we actually are. And we have to develop a habit of being able to practice gratitude.
[00:12:09] Tonja Moon: It brings to mind a scripture, “give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” First Thessalonians 5:18. And that scripture just reminds us of the importance of gratitude, not as a passive acceptance of circumstances, but as an active engagement, really in all aspects life, but recognizing that them as opportunities and blessings. If it’s not habitual, it is just not going to happen. I mean, it really, really has to be a habit and intentional. So there’s this cool quote too, that I found that says, from Melody, Beatty, ” Gratitude unlocks the fulfillment of life. It turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order. Confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast and a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. “I was like, Oh my gosh, that’s just, how beautiful is that?
[00:13:11] Rayna Neises: So powerful and really true.
[00:13:14] Tonja Moon: Yeah, absolutely. And it just allows us to, uh, You know, a shift in focus. And when I think back in some of those times in my life, when I’ve been, depressed or sad or anxious, it really is all about the focus and where you’re putting your focus.
[00:13:32] Rayna Neises: It’s not really about ignoring the challenges or whatever it is that life’s throwing at you in the moment, whether it be, the person you’re caring for and a downturn in their, health or a situation that you’re frustrated with. It’s really learning how to make that shift and acknowledging that it’s still there, but really focusing and valuing the gifts of life and cultivating that sense of well being.
[00:13:55] Reminds me of another scripture, Colossians 3 15. It says,” let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts since as members of one body, we’re called to peace. And be thankful,” that thankful part, you know, that peace comes with finding that contentment and that thankfulness for what we have. And gratitude is definitely not an exercise in being naive, but rather it acknowledges the pain and the injustice in the world, but it embraces that goodness is in the middle of that as well.
[00:14:23] We don’t have to have either or, and like I mentioned before, that black and white thinking, we have a tendency to always think it has to be one or the other. And that’s where this tool comes in, that we’re going to talk a little bit more about is learning how to hold both and be okay that the fact that there are both and really learning to incorporate that gratitude into our daily lives as means.
[00:14:44] Actively seeking and acknowledging the good in the middle of all the trials. It really helps us to recognize and strengthen that we have what we’ve gained with our loved ones. I know one of the things that I talk about in caring for aging parents all the time is we will never have the amount of time we would never, our lives wouldn’t slow down enough to be with them. If they didn’t have these needs, if we weren’t in the process of walking them all the way home. That four and a half years with my dad, all the years before that in my life, I saw him and I spent time with him, but it was nothing like those three days a week that we were just so close and so involved in the moment together and taking care of his needs.
[00:15:32] Tonja Moon: Yeah, so true. You know, for me, I’ve gone through seasons where I think, I’m going to get up every day and I’m going to practice gratitude, or I’m going to, before my feet hit the floor, I’m going to really meditate, pray, and focus on things that I’m thankful for. And then I hit snooze and then I hit it again.
[00:15:55] And I think, okay, well I’ll do it tonight before I go to sleep. And then I’m exhausted. And you know, life gets in the way. Even just the simple act of stopping and being grateful in, A 30 second moment is so incredibly hard. It takes so much discipline. It takes a lot of discipline. And sometimes I think, God’s probably up there looking down going, can you just give me a little gratitude? I created the earth and the heavens and the galaxy. I’ve done all these things. Can I just get a little gratitude? And, you know, shame on us, but especially when you’re in a caregiving season, it is hard. And I have to admit, I was not good at it, especially in the caregiving season of caring for my grandmother. I just wasn’t it’s only really now that I can look back and think that. And be grateful for some of the things that happened, the good and the bad, all the times we had to move her, all the different situations we were in. And, you know, the negative things that were going on. It’s only now all these years later that I can look back and it’s probably a maturity thing to, a life experiences thing that I can look back and truly be grateful for that season. But it was hard. It was really hard.
[00:17:10] Rayna Neises: Yeah. And I think that’s part of where incorporating some of that practice, some of the consistency, I think even just the practice of thinking God for our food as we sit down and eat, it’s a time. It’s a practice. That we have a practice that’s hooked to something we do every day. So sometimes even if you think about when you brush your teeth at night, can I think of three things that I’m thankful for?
[00:17:32] That can be a practice that can be really easily added in because we know you’re going to brush your teeth. So stopping and brushing your teeth and just thinking while you do it, Oh, I’m going to be thankful. Okay, Lord. Today the weather was beautiful. I got to hang out with my grandkids or, I wanted this specific thing and they had it at the store, just those little things.
[00:17:51] If we can think of three things and just acknowledge them, it can really start to change that focus and really help us to pay closer attention to all the blessings that are in the middle of the hard stuff and it does have to become, that’s where it’s becoming just an everyday part of life.
[00:18:06] So let’s take a moment and kind of take a look at this simple tool.
[00:18:10] It’s called yes and and it has to do with improv. It’s kind of interesting because improv, the number one rule of improv comedy is you take what you’re given and you go to the next step. So you embrace the yes. And then you go to the next place. So it’s really created to help you enhance your ability to see the good in the challenging situations, to develop a deeper appreciation for the small blessings that are in your caregiving journey, strengthen your problem solving skills, because as you’re embracing the yes, You have to also figure out how to look at the and and fostering that well being overall so we’re gonna kind of start with taking a look at what the Yes, and looks like so we’re gonna just do this little role play together and we’re just gonna start off with Tonja this is the holiday season So many people are getting ready to travel and tell me five things about traveling that are a pain And that you do not like.
[00:19:09] Tonja Moon: Okay. Yeah. Crowds. I mean, I’m a people person, but I don’t want 10, 000 people around me. And, and this one, it’s just a weird Tonja thing, but, smells like, you know, the airport has that airport smell. And then when you’re waiting to get on the bus, that’ll take you to the car, where you parked your car, there’s all the exhaust smells. And then there’s all the people smells on the airplane. I know it’s awful. It’s definitely crowds smells. It’s expensive nowadays to travel. You know, people think, it’s too expensive to fly. So I’m going to drive. That’s very expensive. I mean, just the cost of traveling in itself is expensive. So that’s 3 things. I think the, I never feel prepared enough or packed enough only to find out I’m overpacked and the more I try to scale it down, the more anxiety it creates. So I just keep overpacking. And just the overall for me, The overall, I love to travel. I don’t love to travel during the holidays because it creates anxiety for me and anxiety, not just around the travel as in getting from A to B, but anxiety about the family.
[00:20:31] Rayna Neises: Like what you’re walking into.
[00:20:33] Tonja Moon: always that weird uncle or there’s always that the one that’s got all the issues that you’re like, okay. I mean, I love my family. If any of my family are, listen me, I love you. I can’t wait to see you at Christmas time. But, it creates anxiety.
[00:20:47] Yeah.
[00:20:48] Rayna Neises: So now let’s say yes, those things are all true. There’s a lot of people, there’s a lot of smells, it’s not cheap. There’s that having to prepare and question, am I prepared and did I bring the right things and did I not? And then the unknown. Of who’s going to be there and is everybody going to get along? And is there going to be any tension in the midst of it? Yes, yes, those things are true. And let’s talk about what’s good. So what’s good about traveling?
[00:21:15] Tonja Moon: So the good about traveling is the excitement because I love change and I love excitement, so I love a change of scenery. In talking about gratitude and thankfulness in general, I’m thankful that I have the ability financially to be able to, if I want to fly, I can fly. If I want to drive, I can afford to that’s gigantic blessing. So my yes would be that I don’t look, I worry about costs. I’m not going to take like, you know. First class to the rich or anything like that. But if I need to jump a cheap Southwest flight to somewhere, I can do that. So I’m thankful that I have the ability to do that. And then, thinking about looking at the list, I just made, and walking into the unknown and the family dynamics, that’s the whole reason we go It’s for the connections to make the memories to see the family, and I love that. I do love that part. I love, I love once I’m there and being settled in and. Taking a deep breath and being able to kind of be in the moment with the family and and catch up with everyone. I love that. And then I’m writing, I’m looking at the list that I wrote down about the smells.
[00:22:35] I know that sounds so weird to people, but if I look at it from a different perspective, because that’s what gratitude is, right? You’re, you’re changing your perspective. So if I look at it from a different perspective, I recall as a child or young adult, when my grandmother was still alive. Walking into her home on Christmas and being overwhelmed by the smells and nothing at any other time of the year replaces those yummy smells of all the cooking that was going on when my grandmother was alive.
[00:23:06] You know, we didn’t have all these, like. We probably did, but she didn’t. These, wonderful Bath and Body Works candles and all this kind of stuff. But, you know, you kind of had a vanilla candle and that was it. Or you had a candle that smelt like a Christmas tree. That was it. And I just, I remember that smell of those candles and her cooking.
[00:23:28] And that’s just never a smell that can be recreated. And that was the only time of year you could get it. And so, Those are all things I look back and I’m, I’m thankful for. But if the perspective is turned a different way, they were also negatives.
[00:23:43] Rayna Neises: Yep. And that’s the whole goal of this activity is that if you take the time to list the things that you don’t like, and then list the things that you do like, they actually are kind of two sides of the same coin. Aren’t they? There’s blessings in the middle of the struggles. Yes, the smells are there in a negative way and other people. But at the same time, smell can be such a blessing when you walk into that place that just brings back so many great memories. So I love the process of really starting to think about it as that perspective shift and thinking about how you can use this tool. Yes. And to not ignore reality and the things that are hard.
[00:24:23] But add the end and find the blessing in it. So stick around and we’ll be right back to learn more about activities and gratitude that you can do with those you’re caring for.
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[00:25:39] Rayna Neises: So thanks for coming back. So we’ve been talking about improv and some ways that you can use that in your caregiving. We want to talk about some specific activities about gratitude since this is our gratitude month. I know it’s the end of the month, but we want to extend it all the way through and really make it just an everyday thing. So using those techniques with the yes and improv go so well with dementia. And caring for somebody. You want to try not to correct. And we’ve talked about that.
[00:26:04] You’re going to hear it over and over again, but in improv, when you’re up there on stage, you’re not going to tell somebody else. That’s not right, right? You’re just going to take the yes and move on. So you have to learn to go with the flow. Another thing that improv teaches us is be okay with silence.
[00:26:23] And one of the things we don’t think a lot about with people in dementia is how overstimulated they can become. And sometimes silence is just what they need. So it’s not a silence that we’re ignoring. It’s not a silence that we’re picking up our phone and engaging in something else. It’s a silence of just being present with them and then allowing them time to process and to really be able to think through what’s happening.
[00:26:48] So learning how To do some of those skills from improv, I think are so powerful and can be such a great habit to start to create. Let’s talk about some other activities that we can do to grow our gratitude, Tonja.
[00:27:03] Tonja Moon: Well, I would love to take credit for this, but, I actually saw it on Pinterest and I just thought it was the neatest thing. So, you know, when you’re at your table, whether it’s just you and your spouse or the whole family’s at the table to line the table with butcher paper and Go around at the place setting.
[00:27:24] I mean, listen, we eat on paper plates every night around my house, but, and just, with a Sharpie or a pen at each place setting, right. Number one, two, three, and just literally right on the butcher board. What are three things you’re grateful for? And when people sit down, have them write it and then elicit conversation around that.
[00:27:41] And I was like, okay, that is so simple, but that is the coolest idea ever. I mean, how sweet is that?
[00:27:47] I remember one time visiting my grandmother when she was, In skilled nursing, and she was pretty far progressed in her dementia, and I knew nothing about dementia, and so I remember asking her, tell me three things about your day. Well, I didn’t realize that she couldn’t do that.
[00:28:09] You know, I, I didn’t know I was not educated. I didn’t know. And so, she came up with these three random things. And one was like, I miss my dog.
[00:28:19] Rayna Neises: Oh,
[00:28:20] Tonja Moon: We had put a bird feeder outside her window and she would always point to the birds.
[00:28:25] But anyway, back to your question about just some other things, I think, so she’s been gone almost 17 years, but I have that memory of her.
[00:28:34] And so, and it was a precious one to me for some reason, , it’s just something that sticks out in my head. And so. As you’re caregiving for someone, you can practice ways of gratitude with them, and just like you always say, Rayna, just meet them where they are in those answers that they give you, because you’ll think back on them and they will bring you, comfort. She couldn’t tell me what she was thankful for. She just told me three things. The birds, I’m sure one was chocolate because that was just the last year of her life. But I think that sometimes we get really wrapped up in trying to do the perfect thing and we just don’t sit with what we get. At least I do. But those are some of the most precious times that I have with my grandmother is when she wasn’t making any sense and looking back, I’m grateful that I had the opportunity just to sit in that now when I didn’t then, if that makes sense.
[00:29:34] But I love the idea on Pinterest and you can go into Pinterest and type in gratitude and a million different little fun exercises come up that you can do, which is what I typically do before I plan an event.
[00:29:48] Rayna Neises: Yeah. So gratitude. Gratitude is something that we want to incorporate in everyday life, but sometimes those special things of just initiating the conversation can make such the difference. And as we’re caring for, we know the progression’s different. And so it might be just something that you have to remember what they loved and actually bring that back to their memory and do that reminiscence. That can really be helpful.
[00:30:11] Definitely being able to focus on and think about gratitude. It’s easier in the month of November because everyone’s talking about it. But we want you to walk away with tools and ideas of how you can have appreciation all year long because it will give you more resilience and help you throughout this journey.
[00:30:30] You’re going to need it and so you might as well start incorporating it now, wherever you are in your caregiving season. So thank you for joining us today for Granny’s Talkin Dementia. It’s been a joy to have some fun, share some stories, and hopefully offer you some great tips on gratitude.
[00:30:45] We always want to leave you with a blessing. And so This is what we want to leave you with today. It comes from Isaiah chapter 40 verse one “comfort of comfort. My people says your God.” May the Lord comfort you and your loved ones in every season of life. Just as he promised in Isaiah 40 verse one, May you renew your strength, uplift your spirits and fill your hearts with peace. As you navigate the journey of dementia with grace and faith, remember you are not alone. The Lord is with you, providing comfort and guidance every step of the way. May his love and mercy surround you, bringing solace to your soul and light to your path. Amen.
[00:31:26] Rayna Neises: Amen
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Meet Our Hosts
Our podcast is guided by the dynamic duo, Tonja and Rayna, who bring a wealth of knowledge and charm to every episode. With their combined expertise, they delve deep into each topic, ensuring an engaging and informative experience for our listeners.

Tonja Moon
Host & Founder of The Grand Baby Project
With a heart as big as her smile, Tonja Moon brings a lifetime of wisdom and a knack for storytelling to “Grannies Talkin’ Dementia.” Founder of THE GRAND BABY PROJECT; a non-profit organization founded in my grandmother’s honor is focused on enriching the lives of Seniors living with dementia through the innovative use of dementia doll therapy. Through DES educating staff in Senior Care Communities and caregivers at home on the innovative techniques and research benefits related to doll therapy. Tonja’s faith has been her anchor, and she shares her experiences with a blend of humor, honesty, and hope, aiming to support and uplift others.

Rayna Neises
Host & Certified Coach and Author
As a Caregiving Coach, Author, and someone who has personally navigated the waters of caregiving for both of her parents who passed away from Alzheimer’s disease, bringing a wealth of knowledge and a compassionate heart to “Grannies Talkin’ Dementia.” Married to a farmer and a grandmother to delightful grandchildren who call me Graham, life is a blend of personal caregiving experiences and professional expertise. On mission to support family caregivers, especially Christian professional women, balancing caregiving and career with grace and faith. Practical, faith-filled, and always aimed at providing support and encouragement is Rayna’s calling card.
