The world will give you every reason to go numb. I nearly did. Here is what I’m choosing instead and what it costs to keep choosing it.
Grief came for me this year. From two directions at once.
The first kind was personal: watching my father’s mind dissolve, lose his words, then his mobility, then his life—slowly, then all at once. My mother, with Alzheimer’s, is unreachable in the same care home back in Canada.
A stepson who made it clear, through cruelty we hadn’t earned and silence we couldn’t breach, that our love, no matter how persistent, was something he’d chosen not to receive. Estrangement has a particular kind of weight—the grief of losing someone who’s still alive and well, the silence where a relationship used to be. My husband of 35 years, aging in ways that are slowly reshaping who we are to each other, and a future I’m only beginning to imagine.
The second was harder to name but impossible to ignore, a feeling I couldn’t shake all year: that something was coming apart in the world beyond my private grief. Things I’d always taken for granted—basic human decency, truth, the accountability of those in power—revealed, one by one, to be more fragile than I knew. As if the ground I’d been standing on was never as solid as I thought.
In the middle of it all, I scared myself twice.
The first was seeing my father’s name on my phone, calling from 3,000 miles away. By then, dementia had taken most of his words. I knew the call would be hard. For a moment, just a moment, I thought about not answering. But I did. I was able to comfort him, I think. It was the last conversation we ever had.
The second was almost as frightening to me: sitting alone, reading too much too late at night, about powerful people doing terrible things to vulnerable people and facing no consequences. Feeling the tears come, the way they do for a woman who has always felt everything a little too much. And then noticing something else underneath the tears—the temptation to stop caring. To look away. To let the callus form.
This wasn’t rage. It was something even more dangerous: hardening.
I know I’m not the only one.
I also know you have to decide what you stand for before the world decides for you. So I started naming them—the things I won’t surrender about being human, no matter how chaotic things become.
What I’m Protecting
There was a meeting—my brother and I on one side of a Zoom screen, the care home’s general manager and one of his directors on the other—trying to get Dad moved to a room closer to Mom. Married 67 years. This shouldn’t have been a negotiation.
But every request was met with a reason it couldn’t be done. Policy. Availability. Staffing. The word “no” dressed up in professional language and delivered with a sympathetic tilt of the head. I started to feel that slow surrender that happens when the people with the clipboard keep shaking their heads and you begin to wonder if you’re the one being unreasonable.
“Can you just stop telling us what you can’t do and start working with us here?”
It came out steady. Not loud. The voice of a woman who has learned, finally, that the feeling isn’t the problem. The silence is. Dad was counting on us. Comfort would’ve been nodding, thanking them for their time, and telling ourselves we tried.
Courage was staying in the chair and refusing to let politeness protect the people with the power at the expense of the people without it.
We moved our parents into that expensive, well-regarded home just over a year ago. It should be enough, but sometimes it isn’t. Mom’s still there without him. And what I’ve been watching is the version of dismissal that never announces itself, the kind that hides behind schedules and staffing ratios and carefully worded reassurances. The kind that treats a person as a bed to be managed rather than a life to be honored.
Dignity, I’ve learned, isn’t just a value. It’s a principle that requires someone to keep showing up and insisting.
Some mornings, when the weight of everything feels too heavy, I drive to one of the wilderness areas near my home and walk into the forest alone. The chatter in my head quiets. My breathing slows. Something in me that had been clenched begins to release.
I don’t go looking for answers out there. I go to remember that the world is still beautiful, that I belong here despite the heartache. That’s not escape. It’s how I come back to myself.
Strong Back. Soft Front. Fierce Awareness.
I found Roshi Joan Halifax in my 50s during a season of tough life quakes. A Zen teacher writing about what it takes to stay open in the presence of suffering, Roshi Joan described a posture: strong back, soft front. A spine sturdy enough to hold you upright through what you can’t control; a heart unarmored enough to keep feeling anyway. I remember those words landed in my body like a truth I’d been trying to live up to my entire life.
But this year, the inquiry deepened. It wasn’t just my resilience at risk or my tenderness. It was my willingness to see—to keep paying attention when everything in me wanted to blur.
This last one is mine: fierce awareness.
It’s the thing that forced me to answer that phone call and the thing that keeps me awake to the reality of my mother’s care home when it would be easier to trust the reassurances. It’s not selective; it refuses to let me look away from cruelty or the systems failing those who can’t fight back.
Yet, it’s also what catches the light on the water, the first hopeful invitation of spring, and the look on my husband’s face that tells me something has shifted before either of us says a word. Fierce awareness isn’t a comfort; it’s a commitment. Just like courage. Just like dignity.
This essay won’t fix what’s broken. It won’t bring my father back or reach my mother or change what’s happening in the world beyond my door. But it’s what I know, and I think you know it too.
So, when the temptation to harden comes—and it will—remember that you have a choice. You can look away, or you can stay.
Stay grounded. Stay awake. Stay fierce.
18 Responses
Thank you for your essay. My husband and I are managing the care of my parents and his parents. When we have a week without a frantic call or visit to the hospital, I’m so thankful. It’s not necessarily the health conditions. It’s the loss of autonomy, a bleak future with a cancer diagnosis, financial difficulties and lack of options….the emotional management of our parents makes it much harder than I would have ever expected. I know life won’t always be this hard but much harder times await. I try to find joy where I can because I know that this is our time for life too and you don’t get another chance to live today.
Kelly, “You don’t get another chance to live today.” I want to borrow that and carry it with me. You’re in one of the hardest seasons a person can navigate: four parents, all of them at once, the weight not just of health crises but of witnessing the losses that surround them. And yet you’re still looking for joy, still claiming your own life in the middle of it. Don’t let go of that. Thank you for reading and sharing here. 💗
Reading your words,Linda,and the words of all the other women who have responded has created a shift in how I will choose to live my life. I will shortly turn 75 and there have been moments of uncertainty as I contemplate the realities of aging ahead. I am blessed to have a loving husband , daughter, son and my sister who is my best friend.My four grandsons and I adore each other. I continue to teach,which has always been my passion.After reading today,I realize first of all that I am absolutely not willing to let go of life.But,I find myself too easily caught up in the negativity and fear which swirls around me. I must more deeply celebrate each day by spending time turning inward -reading all of the beautiful words of others on this moment of the journey, the poetry,the books,the letters. Journaling,listening to the sounds and music which make my heart sing. All of this brings comfort and courage to me. I will choose not to allow my fears and the darkness of the world today overshadow the light in my soul nor the joy and love for my precious life.Thank you all for the gift of your words.
Kathy, what a gift your response is, not just to me but to everyone who will read it here. I love that you arrive at 75 with so much yet you’re still doing the inner work, still choosing deliberately. Yours is a life well tended. Thank you for being here and for reminding all of us what it looks like to choose the light—not naively, but with full knowledge of the darkness. 💗
Your experience seems to be common with many of us. In four days it will be the first anniversary of my mother’s death. The last year was a sad story of mental and physical decline with constant supervision at the assisted living place we finally had to place her. My siblings and I were very invested in mom and we had to stop being nice and fight hard many times in a place that was actually a good place, but lacked communication. We fight the good fights and stand with no regrets when we know we have to.
Kathy, that first anniversary carries its own particular weight. What you said about having to stop being nice and fight hard, even in a good place: that’s exactly it. The fight isn’t always against bad people or bad intentions. Sometimes it’s just against the system’s tendency to forget that there are precious humans at the center of it. Be gentle with yourself this week. 💗
Your story is almost mine. Mother in a home with dementia (but I’m grateful to still have her), adopted son completely estranged and suffers antisocial personality disorder, younger brothers self-involved, constant anxiety and stress from current events . . . . I’m surviving but not living. So tired.
Kathleen, “surviving but not living”—I felt that in my bones. You’re holding so much, and you named it with such honesty. I don’t have words that will lighten any of it, but I didn’t want to scroll past without saying: I see you. Thank you for being here. Rest when you can. 💗
Your message really hit home. At 84, I consider myself fortunate. I have four sons, several grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren who love me. I also have a passion. Writing. Yet every day, I feel the reality of what the world (and how others can deliberately hurt you simply for being who you are) weighing me down. Also, my cognition seems to be slipping.
There’s no need for me to say more, Linda. You said it all. And your essay was so beautifully written. Thanks for writing it. -Barbara
Barbara, what a life you’re living—still writing, still feeling everything deeply, still showing up. I hear the weight you’re carrying alongside all of it, and I’m grateful you took a moment to share both. Thank you for being here, and for your kind words about the essay. Please keep writing. 💗
Thank you. I needed this today.
Thanks for reading, Robin. I’m so glad it found you at the right moment.
Let us all keep going outside,breathing the sweet, fresh air. Sometimes it’s the only thing that will ground me, give me hope, stiffen my resistance, embrace and forgive my fragility and vulnerability. Keep going outside so that looking inside can feel less painful. Love to all 💖🌷
Fran, yes—exactly this. Nature doesn’t ask anything of us, and sometimes that’s everything. Love back to you. ❤️
For the past 20 months I have watched my 85-year-old father battle lung cancer, a fight he can’t win but he fights anyway. I make the Ohio-Maine trip every six weeks or so and sometimes staying present is HARD because I’m watching him leave us one breath at a time. I also know the stress of caring for him has taken years off my mother’s life too. I am so sorry for your pain and loss. I see you.
My 31-year-old daughter decided several years ago that she didn’t need me. It is my belief that she/we are a victim of my narcissistic ex’s work of parental child alienation. The loss of someone so loved who is still living is impossible to navigate. She also has not reached out to my parents during this time. I struggle between things that are unforgivable and the intense desire to just have my phone ring, just once. I had to give myself permission to let it go, to live in a pretend world that it’s ok if I child you raised no longer loves you. It was the only way to pick myself up from the floor that was my daily life.
I see you. And my heart is with you.
Thank you for making me feel less alone today.
Kira, I had to sit with your words for a moment before I could respond. The Ohio-Maine drive every six weeks, watching your father fight a battle he can’t win, carrying your mother’s exhaustion alongside your own. That’s an enormous weight to hold with grace.
And then to carry the estrangement too. The grief of a child who is still living, still out there, but unreachable. I know something of that silence, and you’re right: there are no adequate words for it. The longing in your line “to just have my phone ring, just once” is so human, so real.
I’m glad you found a way to pick yourself up from the floor. I know that took everything you had. Thank you for being here, for seeing me, and for letting me see you back. You are not alone in any of this.
Thank you for sharing what many of us, of a certain age, feel! I am sharing this with my almost 50 yo daughter who I am sure with hold these things true when our time comes. She has also been my steadfast sounding board and confidant during these frightening times.
Thank you for your voice, courage and encouragement!
Chris, your message means more than I can say. What a gift, to have a daughter who is already that person for you—steadfast, present, someone you can think out loud with. That kind of relationship is its own kind of fierce. Thank you for passing this along to her, and thank you for taking the time to write.