caregiver stories Archives

The Screening

Karen Curran February 6, 2026 3 Comments

In 2006, my dad was determined to attend the funeral when his last living brother died. The problem was, Daddy, eighty-two at the time, suffered from cognitive impairment bad enough that for months I’d been trying to get him to move to my home in Tennessee. This trip he was intent on taking would have required a cross-country flight from North Carolina to California—maneuvering through airports, finding a hotel and driving unfamiliar roads in a rental car.

“Daddy, you can’t go out there alone,” I said, wedging the phone between my jaw and shoulder to free my hands for folding laundry.

“Well, why not?”

Missing

Pascale Waschnig May 9, 2025 7 Comments

I sit on the cold chair, looking at the floor.

“Yes, I know I’m depressed,” I say, then pause.

“It’s just that my mum went missing seven years ago, and she was never found.”

Another pause, my words falling away, my eyes lowering.

“Since then, I’ve never been the same,” I say. “It’s hard; it still is.”

A Conversation With My Dead Wife

Louis J. Cutrona Jr. November 1, 2024 5 Comments

Sunday, October 31, 2021. Micalyn’s eightieth birthday.

A week ago, I texted my friend Sandy:

I had a reasonable day, but I felt lonely.

It’s so damn frustrating to have lost my best friend, Micalyn. Whenever I think of something I will want to tell her the next time I see her, reality comes crashing down on me.

Things I Did While Waiting for My Husband’s MRI to Happen

Alina Zollfrank May 17, 2024 12 Comments

1. Reread the stern words, hammered into a sterile printout. The scope results: a scythe. Images of an alien inhabiting his inner world.

2. Notice the footprints on our living-room floor. Briefly consider cleaning.

3. Three breaths later. Hug him. Hug the kids. Hug myself. Hug the dogs. Tilt my head when he says that he doesn’t want to hug right now.

The Man Who Holds Hearts

Patti Bartholomew Heaps June 9, 2023 10 Comments

One spring day last year, I sat in the office of the man who was to be my husband’s heart surgeon, waiting to have one of the most important conversations of my life. My husband, Craig, sat next to me with his guide dog, Chase, at his feet.

The doctor—tall, dressed in surgical scrubs—came in, introduced himself and sat down. His eyes looked kind; his demeanor was serious.

Living and Letting Go in the ICU

Margie Hodges Shaw February 3, 2023 13 Comments

Driving from the Atlanta airport, I arrived at the hospital ICU where my mother had been admitted the day before for trouble breathing. This was the hospital where my siblings and I were born and where our father died. This was the hospital featured in The New York Times following the coronavirus outbreak in March 2020. The hospital still sees record numbers of COVID admissions, and I expected the staff to show signs of exhaustion and numbness to personal tragedy.

My brother was at our mother’s bedside, as he had been from the beginning. The critical-care attending physician was also present.

“Does the hospital have a palliative-care unit?” I asked.

Time Splintered

Carol Scott-Conner January 13, 2023 12 Comments

Time fractured when my first husband died.

There was a before, which no longer existed, and an after, which was unimaginable.

In between, the thinnest–unfathomably thin–line, was the today. The today meant putting one foot in front of the other. One today led to the next today. And finally the year was over.

Love Is the Key

Ann Beach December 30, 2022 5 Comments

Collecting dust on the rustic wooden shelves above a sturdy workbench in my basement are models of history-making ships, spaceships and military fighter planes. There’s an enormous replica of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, complete with iconic NASA logo and a massive orange fuel tank nestled next to its launch tower. Not far off is a black-and-brown plastic replica of the forty-four-gun frigate USS Constitution, its hull held together by two gigantic bolts.

Joe

Jennifer Dupree November 11, 2022 11 Comments

You’re in the hospital again, propped in bed with pillows keeping you from listing to one side or the other, and I’m sitting on a pink pleather chair I’ve pulled up next to the bed.

We watch Dr. Phil until 4:00. I always find this show melodramatic, but you seem riveted. You want to know about these people, their lives, their lies, what they’ll do with the information unveiled to them.

When Dr. Phil signs off, I switch on the Classic Country music station, and we talk.

And Then the Dog Died

Sarah Miller October 7, 2022 13 Comments

Muscle memory. It’s an amazing thing. It’s what keeps my fingers playing Für Elise on the piano long after I’ve stopped taking lessons. It’s the pressure I sense in the crook of my elbow from linking arms with my late husband. It’s why every time I go for a walk I feel the pull of the leash from my dog Elvis, even though he too is gone.

Muscle memory holds on to real memories. And each time my muscle memory kicks in, I want to link arms with my husband, play Beethoven on the piano and walk my dog.

Contented, Though Demented

Karen Curran September 16, 2022 6 Comments

The last two years of my father’s life were interesting. Our previous roles were reversed: Dad was now the child, and I the adult. I moved him to a new city and state, getting him close enough to keep an eye on him. He was already suffering from dementia, a realization I came to after he had forty thousand dollars stolen from him.

That’s right. Forty thousand dollars.

Almost Normal

Dianne Apter July 15, 2022 12 Comments

His steps are wobbly. Our children hold their father’s hands to steady him as they move through the sand toward the ocean. I remain far back on the shore, shading my eyes to make out the three of them as they stand in the shallow water.

I am thinking that he looks like a ten-year-old child from this distance. My sight turns blurry, a combination of sun, sand and sorrow.

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