Hi everyone,
This week we bring you a topic that (in our team’s very informed opinion) doesn’t get talked about enough: caregiving for an ailing family member. Fourteen percent of the US adult population currently cares for a loved one — likely a lot more people than are currently, for example, in a polycule, but we spend waaaay more time talking about that.
It’s the kind of topic we love to cover: challenging, somewhat taboo, and much better understood through the lens of someone’s lived experience. Luckily Maggie Morris is here to share her account of caring for her aging mom, an experience that’s only slightly more complex than how we’d imagine a polycule.
Yours in reader caregiving,
The Prism Team
Maggie Morris is a bi-coastal writer and art director covering travel, culture, and modern life. Her work appears in Dossier, Departures, and other publications.
One thing that makes Maggie feel well: “Swimming always makes me feel calm – and well.”
My mom’s in assisted living. But I’m the assistant.
It’s a Friday night and I’m stuck in a broken elevator in the assisted living wing where my mom now lives in New Jersey. Not exactly the weekend I envisioned at midlife, but here we are. If I were at home in LA, I’d be doing happy hour, then dinner, then soft pants by 10. Instead I’m wondering if anyone actually monitors the emergency call button in this elevator — or if that’s also something I’m supposed to handle. I text a selfie to my Daughters of Decline group chat, knowing they’ll at least make me laugh. And they deliver. “But they’re supposed to assist your living!” “The elevator won’t let you down.” “You’re floored.” They were on fire. Meanwhile I was out of snacks and low on patience.
My mother is 91. She had me, her first child, at 42, then my brother at 46. She has heart failure, COPD, narcolepsy, and a devout faith in pleasing people. After my father died, she moved to the “independent living” wing at a top-rated Continuing Care Retirement Community where she’s been for eight years. CCRCs market themselves as last-stop destinations for aging — promising seamless transitions from independent living to memory care and hospice. When she moved in, we didn’t calculate how long and in what circumstances we could afford for her to live here. Instead, we were just eager to ease the sting she felt in leaving her home, and the vibe here — somewhere between college dorm and cruise ship — did just that. There’s a cafeteria, a dining room, library, gift shop, beauty salon, art studio, theater, gym, and indoor pool with daily water aerobics. The pickleball court and medical spa are part of the recent push to attract younger old people. It’s idyllic, and my father’s Port Authority Pension — an epic windfall that catapulted my mom from a working-class existence to this “luxury” village — has covered it. Until now.