One phrase I will tell myself when the storm clouds seem so dark is “This, too, shall pass.” It does help to strengthen and to keep me going.

Thanks for the book recommendation; I think we’ll add this our Book Club for one of our fall selections. It sounds terrific.

I love hearing from you. You have such an invigorating way about you, it’s very catchy. I’m so, so grateful that I know you. You do as much for me…

I especially liked this post of yours. I was logging on to offer a book I bought today that I think can be very helpful. Of course, being that it’s “Me,” there’s some funny oddball story with it! I had a day off, and I treated myself to relaxing by doing some errands and buying some reading – this book, some classics, and even one about the alleged Betty & Barney Hill alien abduction in the ’60s. So I went to my pile of books to pull the one I wanted to describe here, but instead of that I pulled from the pile the Hills book and started to type its title, “Captured!” Then I thought…well………….., that’s not really a far-off Freudian slip to describe what unanticipated caregiving can turn out to be like in our lives!?!

Seriously, though, the book I found today at Barnes & Noble is “The Everything Guide To Caring For Aging Parents,” Kathy Quan, AdamsMedia/F+W Media, 2009. It might be useful to such parental caregiver experiencers like me and others. There’s a lot of good information about dealing with the dying process, the healing stages, the resources, and what-not. And being the internet age, many of the links and references it cites are actually internet webpages, not just paper-based references.

It brought me back to you, you are right that many of us don’t look for help. What’s nice and good about you, admirable actually, is that you reach out to US and keep after us, checking in every so often and hoping/seeing if everything’s been ok. It makes us feel appreciated and not invisible, and to focus on wanting to think about and reach out to you similarly.

Thanks a lot for your reaching out and helping to me, too. The running message through all of this, including this book, is that we recognize we’re only human beings — the caregiven or their illness/injury doesn’t make us something different or superhuman that we weren’t previously — and we need to remember to not only take care of also ourselves, but to know at each moment we can only do the best that we can and that no situation — not just the good ones, but also the bad — will last forever. Therein lies, sometimes, Change’s silver lining in our lives..

I hope everybody has a good rest of this week!

Gary in Boston