What you know as your life will now be completely different. Like when you brought your baby home. Be ready for that.

Leigh Anne Stevenson

Cared for her father

Richmond, Va.

I am only human with all the limitations that entails. That was a brutal lesson, as I previously believed that wits and all-out effort could solve any problem. It was something I inherited from my immigrant parents. It was sad yet freeing to realize and I couldn’t save him in the end. We all die, and I could just do the best I could.

Anita Dey

Caring for her father

Bowie, Md.

Stop second-guessing your decisions. The reality is that caregiving will frequently put you in no-win situations where no easy answer exists. Don’t beat yourself up. You can only work with what you have. Forgive yourself for being irritable, resentful and sometimes wishing your caregiving responsibilities were over. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It just makes you human.

Judith Henry

Caring for her parents

Tampa, Fla.

Caregiving for a long, protracted time has excavated inner and physical strength that I did not realize I had. It feels like some sort of mind and body fracking taking place within myself. Caregiving strips one of many personal freedoms and resources, but it also provides a type of distilling process that gets your priorities straight. You live this hard, but very streamlined, life with the precious person you decided to care for. I feel the grinding exhaustion, but I also feel the exhilaration of knowing my mother is safe, supported and loved.

Kathy Barnes-Lou

Cared for her mother

Memphis, Tenn.

I learned that I had the capacity to deal with what was in front of me, step by step, creating a structure over weeks and months. There were many points at which I thought to myself, “This is the new normal.” And that really helped me to move forward. I slowly understood that the only thing I could do was stay calm, peaceful, affectionate — there was no big thing I could do to make him better. Recognize that your life is just going to be different for a period of time — that this is not forever.

Roma Misra

Cared for her father

Dallas, Texas

My relationship towards my father before I became his caregiver was antagonistic, at best. I loved him, but it was more of a function of his being my flesh and blood than any deep and meaningful connection. I resented how much time and energy his care required — and how much that reduced my mother’s quality of life. After her death I didn’t know how I’d take care of him or how I’d manage without her. My grief was such that I couldn’t comprehend what life could be if only I’d give it and myself a chance.

Kristen Spangler

Cared for both her parents

Lewisberry, Pa.

I just kept thinking how much I was going to fail at this, and how I’d have to give up any chance of having a life of my own. In these last six years, Dad has become the single most important person in my life. I love him fiercely. I am anything but a failure. I am doing it. I am taking the best care of him I can, and I am still living my life. It may not be the one I planned, and it may bear no earthly resemblance to the one I dreamt of, but it is full and beautiful and meaningful.

Kristen Spangler

Cared for both her parents

Lewisberry, Pa.

Fiercely and humanely protect whatever gives you the most joy and grounding as it is needed to provide the core energy and wellspring from which everything else flows. Frame the experience of caregiving as sacred and as a way to search for personal meaning from a larger perspective.

Leslie Hanlon

Caring for spouse with multiple sclerosis/neurodegenerative disease

Glenside, Pa.