Article December 15, 2003 Issue

Cherishing HOPE while caring for parents

By Merelice

Every Now And Then when we are together, my mother looks at me and says, "It's interesting how we have switched roles. Now you are looking after me. I'm so grateful that you know what's going on and that you're taking care of things."

And I admit that every now and then, I think to myself in response, "You don't know the half of it!" For a number of years, I have been attending to the needs of my parents: first, both father and mother, and now, mother.

As an only child, I have sometimes found this responsibility daunting, relentless, and lonely as I needed to arrange and pitch in on my parents' personal care; attend to numerous complex moves when their needs changed (including a cross-country relocation); respond to emergencies; handle finances, taxes, and miscellaneous paperwork; manage a house sale; and sometimes guess at their needs because they weren't able to express them. It's a common litany, in which people sometimes lose hope.