Caregiver Information

Antoine & His Mother "Like a Full-Time Mom"

Antoine Drake grew up the eldest of nine children. As the big brother, he helped take care of his siblings, learning to cook, clean, wash and sew before he was ten years old. He learned responsibility, discipline, and compassion at the knee of his mother Sandra, who was an active person throughout her life.

This training has been called upon in the past few years in an unexpected way. In 2004, Sandra Drake was boarding a plane when she was debilitated by a stroke. She lost the use of the right side of her body, and her speech was greatly impaired.

After a sojourn in the hospital, Sandra wound up in a nursing home. Antoine hated visiting his mother in the hospital, because he hates them, but the nursing home was another thing entirely.

"My eyes got watery going in there," he recalls. "I hated it. It was painful. And I was always hearing other people, not just my mother, calling out that they didn't want to be there. Well, something told me, 'You got a house, you can take her in.' So I did. It's a blessed thing to do something like this. I don't mind doing it, that's for real."

Sandra is seated beside her son during an interview and has a difficult time responding to questions. She worked very hard to get one sentence out, and after a few minutes was able to say, "It's rewarding that I get to be home."

Antoine has an affable manner, and speaks passionately. "I have to cope with sadness," he says. "I'm used to seeing my mother getting up and going all the time. She was an active person, always involved at the church and helping with the babysitting. Now she's not."

He reports that his mother isn't the only person he cares for. Antoine's girlfriend has medical problems, so he is principal parent of his two boys, and takes care of the girlfriend also.