Dear Eudora

Time Waits for No One – April 14, 2026

Dear Eudora,

I just had a phone call from my sibling who said I shouldn’t go see our mother often because she will like the attention too much and that will cause problems for us. Insert mouth agape. Long pause.

Have you ever heard of anyone saying don’t go visit their parent?

There is a country song by Cody Johnson titled “Til Ya Can’t” with a lyric in it that goes something like, “take that phone call from your momma ‘til ya can’t”. I’ve read that dementia can go along status quo, then out of the blue take a huge turn for the worse and plateau there. My mother is living with some dementia and while she is still on earth, I’m going to see her until I can’t. Last I checked I can live my life as I see fit! Because I know one day it will be gone!

Dear Determined, One,

Oh, for the greater good of our elders and the aged all over the world. Your first sentence provokes a sad laugh from me when it is the furthest thing from any kind of funny. Adhering to the words of your sibling is like feeding a shark in shallow water. I maneuvered around illogical sibling demands before and wonder if your shark sibling is hiding something under one of its tiny scales to tussle the waters.

I have questions.

Is your sibling able to handle watching your mother age or is it difficult for them? Is he or she able to accept your mother’s depth of life? By “us” does your sibling mean between them and your mother? Will these “problems” be between your sibling and their household? Between you, your mother, and your sibling? Or is it possible the “us” your sibling refers to is the two of you?

Because tell me of a mother who thinks she is visited by her children too much or a father who becomes arrogant due to the attention he receives from his children, and I’ll plane, train, or automobile to this elder today for an interview.

Honesty is as gold as the golden hour, so I am pitching a red flag at the beach. I see a rip current of sibling competition, worry from your shark sibling that they will “look bad” if you visit your mother more than they are capable or willing. But this isn’t your problem. Nor is it fair to your mother. Whether it is because of logistics, your sibling’s own relationship with your mother and/or you, their ability or inability, or their willingness or unwillingness to swim alongside your mother as she ages, this is your sibling’s issue to unchurn themselves.

As for the song, I don’t often listen to country music. Though play me some Shaboozey, and I’ll tell you in another life, I’m one of his line-dancers accessorized with silver sequined fit ‘n flare pants and a white hand fan waving away caregiver blues.

Visiting and phoning our parents are the little actions that get them two-steppin’ out of their loneliness, their deafly silent days, and clapping into some good news. A little attention may motivate someone to dig out their forty-year-old tambourine out of the closet and jingle jangle into our ears until its unbearable. We never know where a conversation with our elder will take them. Or us.

But back to Cody Johnson. I looked up his song, “’Til You Can’t”, and listened to the lyrics.

So take that phone call from your momma and just talk away

‘Cause you’ll never know how bad you wanna ‘til you can’t someday

Don’t wait on tomorrow ‘cause tomorrow may not show

Say your sorries, your I-love-yous, ‘cause ma you never know

If you got a chance take it, take it while you got a chance

Yes. His phrases confirm your conviction to spend as much time as you want with your mother for as long as she’s here. Even when it seems impossible. Even when you become exhausted. Visit her, even when it’s annoying. Call your mother, even when you think you don’t have time. Answer her calls, even if it’s the thirty-seventh of the day. Give your mother the attention she apparently will like too much. Whatever style of music she creates with her received attention is her prerogative and no one else’s.

Floating with a parent through their aging or dementia may not be the easiest or prettiest swim stroke. But stay with it. View it as a practice. Your practice will raise both of you out of waters that try to break you such as your shark sibling stirring up the water. Keep your focus on your mother while you tread water with her offshore. You might break the status quo record of how our society and its shark swimmers treat and talk about its elders. The shark will eventually get pulled in its own undertow.

So, keep swimming, Determined One. For one day your mother’s address will be someone else’s and your phone won’t ring. Your practice now, will fringe your future with confidence and gladness. You may need a hat but leave the cowgirl boots at home. Even if it’s in your mind, you will feel the sand comforting your toes and the warmth of the sunrise on your cheeks. You will remember you took the one chance you had with your aged mother when you could, happy you used your own strength to not get caught up in the rip current.

With care,

Eudora

Spring Clean to Organize or Control? – March 31, 2026

Dear Eudora,

So, my parent went on a little spring break to my sibling’s house out of state. Knowing that those who have some troubles with dementia don’t do well when you mess up their routine and take them out of their comfortable environment, I was worried that this was not a good idea. I decided to keep my mouth shut. But lo and behold she’s home and confused. Every day I’m getting a phone call from my mother that she needs medication refilled. I keep telling her she has enough, it is on auto refill, and Medicare won’t pay until it’s time for the refill. This went on for at least 6 days. Now, the therapists at the residence community are calling to tell me my mother is confused. She has medicine but is taking it out of an old 7-day pill box. During the 6-day confusion, my mother was calling the pharmacy on the daily and they were telling her the same thing. But she insisted it be filled. So, they fill it. But it’s not covered by insurance. I get a text saying it’s ready! I stop everything I’m doing. I drive to the pharmacy to find out more about the situation. They told me they filled it because my mother insisted and in two days it will be covered. I had them restock it and will have to go back in two days to make sure it gets back on the auto refill schedule. I’ve said to my mother before “why do you make it hard for me to take care of you?” I have everything organized on my end, so I have less stress and more ease as I move through this difficult process of her declining memory. My mother wants control of her life. I want to have a life! Or control what little life I have right now and control what I need to do for her. If I’m organized and efficient, then the caregiving works for me. My mother’s confusion after the trip to my sibling’s was a separate issue. But through all the before and after mess of the trip, the therapists recognize my mother manipulates me. I’m learning to figure out what is her confusion vs her micromanaging manipulation. Control. Organized. I’m exhausted by it all. But not wishing for the end. Just to leave me be. To do me. While I take care of her. Any thoughts?

Dear Exhausted One,

Of course I have thoughts. Because I’ve lived what you are living.

First, your wins. Before your mother’s trip, you were aware that a disruption in her routine and taking her out of her environment (out of state for several days is completely different from taking your mother to a restaurant in the neighborhood) might cause deeper confusion and strenuous repercussions. You stayed out of your mother’s trip to your sibling’s home. Bravo (since control and micromanagement are a focus in your letter). The therapists recognize your mother’s behaviors. This affirms you are faced with layers of challenges while caring for her instead of implying, you’re just annoyed with your mother. You state you aren’t wishing for the end. Bravo. Bravo. Bravo.

Reading your letter exhausts me! Who wouldn’t be exhausted by the aftermath of the spring break trip that led to some disorientation upon your mother’s return. Then her insistence for a refill from the pharmacy. Your back and forth to the pharmacy. (I can guestimate the number of combined phone calls your mother made to you and the pharmacy.) Your will to keep everything concerning your mother and your own life in order. Dealing with your mother’s manipulation. Both of you trying to control your separate lives. The micromanagement. By chance, is this a family trait? Is it possible your wish to control everything teeters on the edge of being a micromanager yourself? Food for tree thought— sometimes we don’t see we obtain the slightest skin of the apple that fell from the tree until the tree is aged, and we are aging.

Regardless, as we care for our aged tree whether we fell or flew from it, for many hands on caregivers like yourself, there are days, weeks, and months when the experience is more like sitting in the seat of a delusional-high-speed-gravity-dropping-ring-of-fire-carnival ride under a funnel cloud rather than floating in an inflatable swan down a sing-song-where-everybody-gets-along-lazy-river ride while admiring fields of blooming spring tulips under a crystal blue sky. Primary caregivers often live with the aftermath of an elder’s confusion whether it is from memory loss or a three-ring circus.

For several years, I was in your running-around-for-your-mother shoes while constantly playing the part of a ringmaster to tame the three-ring circus that developed around my mother’s arena.

While I was in a good caregiving flow (with the help of eight women over the course of those years) for my mother who lived with late-onset Alzheimer’s, a cluster of pandemonium developed. My siblings infrequently worked my mother into their schedules instead of bending themselves into my mother’s routine or helped with the hands-on caregiving. Her neighbors and friends, who were not in tune with my mother’s ever-changing needs as her memory declined, voiced their unsolicited opinions at my mother’s front door, in her living room, over the telephone with me about how the nine of us women should care for my mother. One neighbor was adamant that I find a sixty-something-year-old Polish woman to come live with my mother. I asked her what age, and ethnicity has to do with caregiving?

Because the noise in these rings was at times so excruciating, I once called an 800-Alzheimer’s helpline and admitted to the women on the other end of the phone that I wished my mother would die because caring for my mother wasn’t the hard part. The difficulty came from the bystanders causing chaos. Do you know what the woman said to me? “You’re not the first person I’ve heard say this.”

I lived through caregiving drama in mind, body, and spirit. I did lose my life for a while. Survived. And got it back, slowly. For a while, my husband and kids lost me. I eventually lost my mother, both sad and a blessing. Someday your mother will be gone. But until she is, my hope is you don’t lose your life, or mind and spirit, caring for her.

It is difficult to stay calm. It takes tremendous effort to smooth the exterior disorder and not get life sucked out of you. Bend yourself a little but try not to break. Step back from the cotton candy, fried dough hiding under powdered sugar, contortionists, sword throwers, and the elephants in the room begging for peanuts. Sit yourself down in a comfortable chair with a stack of magazines through your mother’s phone calls. Remind yourself this is a common act among elders and at the exact same time, there are thousands of other elders calling their grown children caregivers fifty times an hour, too. The Rippling Sibling Circus seems to be a popular traveling show.

Remember there is a flow to organization. There is the ease you mention when being personally organized to dilute the stress of caring for your mother. Micromanagement does not leave room for space to just be. So that you can do you.

For better or worse, try viewing your mother’s manipulation as her way of having control of something in her aged life. Only you can make the decision to not take it personally and toss the word out the window as you spring clean.

Lastly, sometimes you never forget what people say to you during your caregiver years. I’m quite thankful to my mother’s neighbor who voiced her opinion about my mother needing a Polish caregiver. There is a brilliant Polish proverb that I repeated to myself while caring for my mother: “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”

You can’t control your mother’s confusion. But you can control your peace when the monkeys interfere.

With care,

Eudora

First Lunch in Assisted Living – March 7, 2026

Dear Eudora,

I recently watched a standup comic who said something to the effect that he loves family but that being part of a family guarantees heart break and you will be hurt because it’s love. There are no truer words! Today, I moved my mother to assisted living filled with judgement that my mother was way better than these people. How horrible to put on paper but I have a protective mother’s heart towards my mother. 

How the tides have turned. I remember sending my children to first grade knowing it’s what you do, the right thing to do, and what is best for them. Letting out that first segment of the kite string of independence on their own journey as they begin their march to adulthood. I bravely kissed them with a smile on my face, gave them a giant hug, and walked them into their classroom. Then I turned with tears streaming down my face as I walked out. They didn’t know then and won’t know until they someday get the pleasure and pain of doing it themselves with their own children.

I now witnessed my mother walk into the scary lunchroom of old and find her table as I quietly walked beside her. Residents introduced themselves to her and I kissed her goodbye, once again turning with tears as I walked away.

They say history repeats itself. I am finding this to be true. 

So dearest Eudora, where do you put all this love? Someday I will walk away for the last time. 

Dear Mother with a Protective Heart,

Your heartstrings are being stretched. Also, you are brave.

As I always do with caregivers who write in, I recognize their win for the day. Your win is that you didn’t drop your mother off and leave. You walked alongside her, the new girl on the block, until she found a seat in the dining room. Let’s celebrate this in a large way. Transitioning a loved one to assisted living is no minor endeavor for a multitude of reasons that are too long to list here. But helping them get acquainted with the lay of the land and the dining room is a major bridge to cross, the bridge connecting what was, to what is.

A parent doesn’t want to see their first grader eat alone in the lunchroom as much as an attentive caregiver doesn’t want to see their parent eat alone at a table in a senior care community. When our children start school, we hope they are invited in and make good friends. It is only natural and valid you want your mother to ease into her new place of living with no drama. One thing not often admitted by residential community personnel or family members is how the dining room in an elder community can be as cliquey as a school lunchroom, regardless of if a resident is new or not. Side note: after my mother died, I found a letter a friend wrote her telling my mother about the dining room “groups” and “behaviors” in the elder community where she lived and to which my mother refused to move.

Walking around an assisted living wing/dining room of a senior community is quite different than the independent living wing or your mother’s kitchen. It is also quite different than if your mother remained at home with in-home caregivers. The quiet, slow, vacant, or wheelchair and walker doused corridors you walked through with your mother for the first time hold an entirely different personality than a personal home. It is only natural and valid you felt protective of your mother. Perhaps view your urge to judge what you initially saw among the residents more of a comparison to your mother’s surroundings and social network before her move. This is a life adjustment for both of you.

I’ve experienced people who stop, drop, and leave their parent and aren’t willing to help them transition. Maybe because they don’t want to spend the time. Maybe they don’t have the time. Maybe because they aren’t strong enough to watch and don’t want to face their own emotions.

Watching your mother transition to an assisted-living community tugged at the emotions of your sentimental heart. Your sentimental heart is a gift. It shows that you love hard and cherish memories and the stages of life with the fullness of your heartstrings. You are not alone. When we extend our heartstrings to help our loved one fly, even when it would be easier to look away, and until we walk away for the last time, we live with no regrets. No regrets is where you put all your love.

With care,

Eudora

Stand Up or Sit Down? – January 21, 2026

Dear Eudora,

The three different therapists that are giving my mother various therapies once a week informed me that they feel my mother has declined significantly in only three months. I was surprised because I’ve noticed improvement in my mother’s physical strength and mind since she moved from her home into independent living in a senior living community.

I listened respectfully but trusted that I know my own mother better than they do. They said she missed taking some of her medication or took it on a wrong day. I too have noticed this and bought her a timed dispenser that allows her to get the one pill she needs per day.

I read all the instructions, put the batteries in the dispenser, and set the time and alarm. I was all ready to load the medication and my mother said she doesn’t want to use it. She then proceeded to show me her pill box. She missed Monday’s pill and I noticed a set of pills on the counter. Even though I left with the new pill dispenser box due to her wishes, I’m not returning it because she is showing me this is needed. 

How on earth am I supposed to care for her when she fights me on this? How do you stand up and be an advocate for your parent at the same time stand down when your mother says what she wants? It feels like not standing up to her is not really caring for her. With all this up and down my quads should be in great shape to move forward! 

Dear Caregiver With Strong Quads,

First, you have not stated your mother is in danger despite her pill mix-up. Very good. Caregiving is one of the most challenging exercises that exists. I would count it as a win that you recognize you are gaining strength to move forward. Knowing when to stand up, sit down, do wall squats, side lunges, or a plié squat is tricky. Especially when a parent moves to a community where there is a lot of foot traffic and the coming and going of different “instructors.”

You have encountered two slight disturbances in your caregiving gym (arena): people who haven’t exercised with your mother for as long as you have, and your mother pulling out her own resistance band to use her voice and claim her independence.

Though the three therapists may have had the best intentions when they relayed their observations of your mother to you, this is a short window view. You absolutely know your mother’s mind, body, and spirit better than anyone, and know what her favorite cut of meat is, if she likes ice in her water, and how she likes her bedspread or duvet folded as she settles into bed.

I’d consider you being surprised by the therapists’ comments and you seeing the opposite of what they’ve reported as an invitation to stay vigilant in your caregiving and your advocacy for your mother. No matter who, what, when, where, why, and sometimes how, your intuition will alert you to feel when something is not in alignment for the benefit of your mother’s well-being.

Did your mother go to therapy before she moved from her home to this senior living community? Have you sat in on one of your mother’s therapy sessions or asked to? If she wasn’t getting therapy before she moved, is there a chance she doesn’t want to do therapy now? Is there a chance she’s using her strength and intentionally not giving the therapists the performance they want or need to document?

On the other hand, if she was getting therapy before she moved, is there a chance that her personality isn’t jiving with the personality of one or all the therapists in this building? Is there a chance your mother feels there are too many “instructors” interfering with her independent living? In a therapy session, is there a chance she’s pulling from the strength of Jane Fonda’s squats, or using her own resistance band, thanks to Jack LaLanne? Is she using the same power moves with you while you introduce a new pill dispenser?

As for this dispenser, take it back next week and again, offer the idea of using it to your mother. If she pulls out two resistance bands, take it home and return with it the following week. Try to change your wording in how you present it to her. Present the new and current dispensers as options in a way that allows your mother to feel she is making the decision on her own to use the new dispenser. Finding clever wording that is motivating and not threatening takes practice. And patience which also takes practice.

This is all practice. Because each day we live as a caregiver, the exercise can feel different. To stand strong, we must practice the hard squats. Some days we can only do one. But we build up the strength to do twenty and beyond. You may have to build up to thirty squats before your mother decides to agree to use the new pill dispenser and tell you it was her idea all along.

With Care,

Eudora

No Cooperation – December 9, 2025

Dear Eudora,

My sibling, who lives out of state, canceled my mother’s car insurance! Why make it more difficult for me to care for mom? I just don’t understand! My mother is eighty-nine years old and not very strong or flexible. She walks with a walker for longer distances and uses a cane for short distances. Even though she can’t drive anymore she wants to keep her car for her benefit so I can take her to her doctors’ appointments, the grocery store, shopping at HomeGoods and Hobby Lobby, etc. The spare walker fits perfectly in the trunk. The doors open wide enough for her to shimmy in without hassle. The interior is spacious. The passenger seat is just the right height for her to sit comfortably and extend her legs. My sibling doesn’t understand this, nor honestly do I think she cares at all. My mother called me and said the insurance got canceled. I asked her, “Are you sure you read the paperwork right because your homeowners insurance did get canceled because your house sold?” I thought maybe her confusion was at play. She paused and reviewed the paperwork. Yes, she was correct. Her car insurance did get cancelled. “Your other child must have done that without telling you or me”, I responded. I told my mother to hold on while I called the agent to ask. I explained to the agent that my mother didn’t want her insurance cancelled because she still uses the car for me to drive her around everywhere since she can’t get in and out of my small SUV. The agent reinstated it until the beginning of next year. So now my mom wants me to call her lawyer and see what our options are. Eudora, what do you do when siblings are uncooperative, don’t help with the day-to-day care but do things like this and make it difficult for the one doing everything?

Dear The One,

Thank you for writing in about this challenging moment with your uncooperative sibling. Your win is that you advocated for your mother and got her car insurance reinstated. I’ll start off by commending you on being your mother’s primary caregiver. If no one has told you lately or ever, you are doing a fine job with the admirable work of taking care of not only your mother, but one of society’s elders. So often, our elders are forgotten, isolated, pushed around, caged and silenced.

Now, I’ll continue by being frank and leave beating around the bush for what it was historically meant for, hunting birds. Even if your mother is living with a degree of confusion, your sibling’s decision to interfere with a major element of her quality of life, especially without discussing it with your mother or you, is a backseat of sneakiness and disrespect. It is none of my business who is your mother’s financial POA but if your sibling was able to cancel the insurance, one can assume it is your sibling. Yet, as you state, your sibling is not involved with your mother’s day-to-day care. If your mother is still receiving her mail and keen enough to read paperwork correctly and continues to have a life outside of her place of living, your sibling is crossing the double center line. 

Of course, your mother wants her own car to use with you being her driver. It is her car, her home on wheels. Does your sibling expect your mother to call a senior Uber or Lyft ride? If your mother used a service such as GoGoSeniors, would your sibling have no issues with your mother paying a service fee on top of the standard fare? With your mother’s limited mobility, does your sibling believe it would be easy for your mother to leap up the steps of a SeniorsAreWiseBirds passenger van? No one needs glasses to see mothers’ cars are the best for octogenarians with walkers or a math degree to calculate that these ride services or hiring a driver would tally up to more than your mother’s monthly car insurance. 

Does your sibling expect your mother to stay caged in her home and sing ballads of wishful tchotchke shopping? For all we know, your mother could live another ten years.

To help you not feel alone in this, my mother was eighty-three when she stopped driving. One of my siblings who lived out of state within driving distance suggested it was time. I too lived out of state within driving distance. Another sibling lived near my mother. I got on board with their decision that my mother stop driving. But I recognized she still had a full life outside her home such as book club, visiting friends and family, daily and Sunday mass, church events and activities, grocery shopping, shopping at the mall, and doctor’s appointments. What was my mother supposed to do? She carried vitality and wisdom. She was still living and wasn’t ready to stop. She was no way ready to be confined to her home as an isolated bird whose song would sound more like an elegy for a caged chickadee than a woman who was still writing essays for her Antiquarian Club.

Neither sibling presented a plan as to how my mother would get to her destinations or offered to help. This was the beginning of my commitment to regularly travel ninety miles one way to drive my mother around to sustain her social lifestyle. Because I was sandwiched between her and raising my kids, I also hired a woman to be my mother’s driver twice a week. Both she and I drove my mother’s car for the exact same reasons you use your mother’s. My mother lived another six years.

Unless your sibling is planning to move back and either be an active participant in your mother’s caregiving such as her driver or at the very least, shadow you on the daily to see the idiosyncrasies of this honorable work that doesn’t get enough recognition, you have taken the right steps to call the lawyer per your mother’s request. I repeat, per your mother’s request. Per your mother’s request. Per your mother’s request.

Though eighty-nine, your mother still has a voice. My mother was eighty-seven when she used hers to tell one of my siblings to stop pushing her to move. Your mother doesn’t deserve to be pushed around either. Or silenced. 

When you feel yourself veering off toward the gravel of your sibling’s nonsense, refocus on your mother’s wishes. It’s the only lane in which to drive.

Wishing you travels of ease as you continue being the one for your mother.

With care,

Eudora

Don’t Micromanage Me – November 6, 2025

Dear Eudora,

This is how I started my morning. I had a plan with my mother, who is always twenty minutes early, knows I’m coming and what time I’m coming, to pick her up for her doctor appointment at 10:30AM for an 11:00AM appointment that may take us five to seven minutes to get to. I was so triggered! If I say I’m coming, then I’m coming! I’m overwhelmed by this whole process of being her medical power of attorney and her chauffeur. I’ll feel more comfortable the more organized I get but it is in the early stages of my new role. I have a tote set aside with an expandable folder to keep track of everything! I need to grab her keys for the car, grab my garage door opener, grab my water bottle then get all my stuff! I’m doing my best to have this ready by the door etc., and I’m getting repeated phone calls from her. I exercised, showered and made my smoothie all while my irritation level was rising. I had to stop at the drug store and pick up something she needed before appointment too. By the time I picked her up at 10:15AM, a whole fifteen minutes early, I was ready for an F bomb! The cluelessness of everything I have done before I got there and continue to do for her amazes me! Then her trying to micromanage her Capricorn daughter?! Big mistake! How on earth do you handle something like this when I hear my dad voice ringing in my head, “she’s never going to change so I don’t know what you want me to tell you!”

Dear Capricorn Daughter With a F-Bomb on the Tip of Her Tongue,

First and foremost, I would recognize your win which is your tote bag with expandable folder. You are taking the steps to be dependable and responsible for your mother’s sake and organized so you don’t lose your mind. If you are in the early stages of caring for your mother, this is but a baby step among the set of steep steps up to The Monument of the Caregiver. As we care for our elders, there is no yellow brick road to skip along in ruby red slippers where we won’t be tested by various personalities, unexpected detours, a circus of events, and inclement weather. You can help yourself by lowering your expectations of how you think the process should go and what your mother is capable of as she ages including her ability to change her lifelong ways and mindset.

Find ways to cope. This may involve trial and error on a daily or weekly basis. Stay vigilant that whatever coping practices you act upon in this stage may not work for the next stage or the stage after. But for now, don’t wait until you arrive at your mother’s before you let the F bombs fly. Let them sail in the shower, as you exercise, when you blend your smoothie, as you add more organization to your tote bag, when you’re scrambling around for your belongings to get to your mother’s in time, before you answer her thirtieth phone call and especially the moments you feel you are being micromanaged.

Even when, especially when, we don’t want to hear it, it is helpful to revisit the saying “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”. If your father’s memento regarding your mother’s stubbornness is buzzing in your ears, do you think he is telling you she won’t change, but you can? 

A gentle reminder Capricorn daughter, one day the phone won’t ring, and the passenger seat will be vacant.

With care,

Eudora

Overwhelmed – October 27, 2025

Dear Eudora,

Packing up my mother to move to assisted living feels like a mountain of takeout containers! It just doesn’t only feel like it, it is. Packing up with a mother whose memory comes in and out is so difficult as she forgets she’s moving one minute then wants to move everything from 2000 square feet to 700! Trying to sort what she needs to move while also having to throw away, shred and donate is not only physically exhausting but emotionally too! Then I’m home facing my own 35 years of accumulation and want to just lay on the floor. Afraid if I lay here too long, they will find me under a pile of takeout containers. This caregiver needs a vacation but for now I will not cook dinner and order takeout!

Dear Overwhelmed,

Helping your mother move to assisted living is no Saturday afternoon nap. When you want to be vacationing at the beach, you’re instead training to hike Mt. Everest. I concur it is overwhelming rummaging through the landfill of one’s belongings, especially your mother’s. In some way or another and at some minute in time, these personal possessions will find their way to someone else’s dumping ground. Honestly, aren’t we all just passing around each other’s stuff? You never know who is shopping at Goodwill for takeout containers to store their extra buttons, paperclips and push pins, seashells, and collections of bottle caps.

Whether you realize it or not, as you till the land of your mother, you are building a depot of wins. Taking notes of the positives during this process will sustain your strength as you help her replant herself in new surroundings.

Give more attention to what you do, not what you’d rather do; the purging, not the clutter; the single step, not the daunting mountain peak.

You pulled yourself off the floor so you wouldn’t be mistaken for a deli container.

Despite the nuisance, you are showing up for your mother, to help, piece by every tiny piece, throw away, shred, and donate her life as she’s known it rather than treating her as if she belonged in a container of leftovers.

Instead of standing on the edge or running away altogether, you are taking the climb as a caregiver which does not fit in a tidy container, least of all, a parfait cup.

You bypassed cooking and ordered takeout! To feed my curiosity, was it Chinese food?

These are substantial gains. Collect them. First, in your heart. Then scribble them down in a notebook or on the loose-leaf paper your mother might have saved with her take out containers. Remember them. You are scaling the mountain of caregiving. Some days you might feel you elevate to ten thousand feet. Other days you might feel you are circling the mountain, and a thick sky is clouding the peak. Either days, rereading your forward gains is an essential tool. For one day, you will be standing on the peak of this Himalayan expedition breathing as if you were at sea level.

With care,

Eudora

Self-Care – October 16, 2025

Dear Eudora,

Oy caregiving is intense. Not hard but it takes effort. I have done a psychic medium reading once and he said to soak my feet in Epsom salts in the evening to wash away unwanted energy, He said it was an old Italian practice. I find that it is a helpful ritual to wash away the day and it reminds me of my upbringing of “clean sheets clean kid”. I stop up the tub and put three scoops of Epsom salt into the tub saying “the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost” as I toss them in. I proceed to shower and wash the day away. So, other than complaining, martinis and avoidance, what other self-care suggestions do you have to help a daughter pack up her mother for her move to assisted living? 

Dear Helpful Daughter,

Packing up your mother’s life of belongings is about as easy as walking from Anchorage to Key West without a map. First and foremost, be kind to and patient with yourself.

I’ll keep this simple because the various ways to tend to one’s personal well-being are not complicated or costly. Self-care does not exist in quick clicks to purchase miracle lotions and potions, influencer tricks and schticks, or the weighted trends of the season that don’t align with the season you are in which is weight enough. Self-care already exists in you. Only you know what stimulates your senses, eases your heart, calms your nerves and nurtures your soul. It might take some trial and error at first. And don’t be surprised if what works for you today, might not work when your mother gets to where she is going.

While driving to and from your mother’s and probably every which way during this packing period, is there a farmer’s market or seasonal farm stand nearby? Stop and buy a swag of bittersweet. Select a handful of mini gourds and pumpkins to display on your kitchen table. Pick up the pumpkin that chooses you, lay out newspaper on her kitchen table and carve it with your mother like when you were six years old. Except now, you are the one sculpting the design and your mother, the assistant. Even if you aren’t thirsty or hungry, go through a Starbucks or Chik-Fil-A drive-thru anyway. Seeing You are a helpful daughter helping your mother move handwritten on the cup, or hearing the cashier say, “My pleasure’, will strengthen you as you walk toward Key West.

You are lucky in that you grew up with family truisms and have learned about a helpful cultural practice from the psychic medium. This is a starting point. This point will open wide the path for your personal well-being as you walk with your mother. Continue this Epsom salt prayer ritual with the Holy Trinity. Can you think of two additional small daily actions either from your morning or afternoon routines which you can enhance? By adding a morning and noon well-being segment to your day, you’ll create a personal book of psalms to help keep you from getting lost.

During coffee or teatime, light a candle and watch the movement of the flame. If you have the habit of doom scrolling, consider replacing this with reading three pages of a physical book or a magazine. Three pages will lead to more like a minute of scrolling leads to wasted hours we’ll never get back. If you hear yourself moaning “I’m too tired”, move! Even if it’s for ten minutes, walk around your house even if it has four rooms, the block, your yard even if it’s the size of a closet or the treadmill if you have one. Lay on a yoga mat and let your body and breath move before your thoughts. Put on 80’s music and dance. The walls might cry with joy and join you. Do you watch reality TV? Consider swapping out a show for an Ava Gardner movie or learning Italian. There is a rhythmical flow to il padre, il figlio, e lo spirito santo, don’t you think?

OK, if you stick with reality TV make the experience real i.e. eat a chunk of dark chocolate, make stove-popped popcorn, snack on apple wedges sprinkled with cinnamon and drizzled with almond butter, pick pistachios from their shells, sip tea with German bread. Or if we really want to be real, you mentioned martinis. Pour peanut M&M’s, Swedish fish and Himalayan salted potato chips in snack bowls and prepare your favorite martini. What will it be? Gin, Vodka, Wet, Dirty, Chocolate, Espresso, Gibson, Mexican, French, Saketini, Vesper, Naked or Direct, Shaken or Stirred or simply On the Rocks?

Be careful. Everything in moderation. Authentic self-care is effective and contagious. Without realizing it, any set of rituals could prompt you to bypass the 50/50 measure of helping your mother and guide you to create the Perfect Martini. “I’ll have what she’s having”, your mother may exclaim and request you make it a Double.

Cheers!

With Care,

Eudora

Head in the Dirt or Alert? – October 8, 2025

Oh, my dear Eudora, have I got a question for you! My “deer” mother is eighty-nine, frail and beginning to have dementia and my sister and I think it’s time for an assisted living home. I asked my mom and she agreed, her biggest complaint is that she doesn’t want to cook. So earlier this year my sister took her to see the facility and my mom liked it and said yes but not until the end of summer. So, my sister calls and a room will be available September 30, and she asked if I would take my mom to see it and for my mom to bring her check book. I agree and call my mom to set up a time to meet there. I show up and my mother brought this meddling neighbor that I never met. Unbelievable! I was instantly mad and was acting immature and surly! I am also mad at myself for once again not standing up for myself and now my mom. I should have said this is family business and you can wait outside. My brain has never been quick like that! It gets worse. The director offers my mom a transporter aka a wheelchair but because they are not a nursing home, they cannot push her so here is where I do stand up for myself and tell her I’m not pushing her either. I have my own health issues right now. So, we do the tour and now my mom doesn’t want the room shown to us. She wants the big room which isn’t available! She’s asking the director to move people out of the room she wants, and this intrusive neighbor is talking my mom out of it! Comments like “that’s too far for you to walk”, “you might like some other places in town”, “you can’t afford the big room”, “you might be confused”! I wanted to slap her! Now instead of taking my anger out on the neighbor I yell at my mom! It was a shit show and now what? Winter is coming, my mom isn’t eating right even though my sister orders meals for her, she can’t take her garbage cans out nor get her mail and she’s still driving but she is getting very close to having that taken away from her! Then it gets better. After the meeting is done the neighbor takes my mom to look at a different facility! The level of inappropriate behavior is blowing my mind. How dare she impose herself in our family of three! I want to file an order of protection against this woman! 
I need to get power of attorney and get my head out of the grass! Ugh what are us two little does to do?!

Dear Little Doe One,

Please, take a breath! Or four. Indeed, you have a great deal swirling around you in the field of helping your mom transition to a new place of living. Yet, you have one of the most important things going for you, and her, which is her willingness to move. Your mom being agreeable is like winning the lottery when you haven’t even bought a ticket. Congratulations! If only everything about caring for our elders went as smooth.

Clearly, not all hens are nurturing or have a hens supporting hens mindset. Some hens are callous. Callous hens are competitive. Callous competitive hens chatter to try to make their wattle feel more elegant than another hen’s wattle. When one encounters a gathering of callous competitive wild hens chattering about how, when, what and where they think is best for an elder, even when the elder is not their own, I’d suggest studying their claws. Are they perfectly polished? Filed sharp and pointed as if the hen is at the ready to scratch an innocent fly? Or are they as natural looking as un-botoxed, un-lifted skin? One set of claws is ready to harm an innocent fly. The other set is willing to rescue the innocent fly.

If you were aloof, grazing on wild butterweed and goldenrod, you wouldn’t have noticed the two wild hens clucking their nonsense around your mother. Whatever the “transporter rules” are at this residential care home, I imagine the director experiences a certain level of stress since, at the end of her working days, she has quotes to meet, beds to fill, dollars to make for the corporation. As for your mom’s neighbor you’ve never met before, if you didn’t do so already, please put a stop to her interfering with what she thinks is best for your mom. Wild hens like these two don’t bring out the best in anyone. Continue to be conscious of your own temperament. Find some tools to help you cope with encounters with people who are not directly involved with your mom’s life-style choices and well-being. Who am I kidding? You may need to search your toolbox for when something arises from someone who is directly involved with your mom’s care.

So, I have a tool for you to test out. You can take it or leave it. When you feel tension rising to your shoulders, your heart filled with a swarm of irritable bees, sing “Do-Re-Mi” aloud and on repeat. Sing it when you pack up your mom’s house. Sing it when your mom moves into her new room, grand or small. Sing it through every hallway of the residential home. Sing it near the director’s office door. Sing it near every transporter you see regardless of if an elder is sitting in it. Sing as if you are foraging overgrown grass on an alpine meadow alive with promise. Heck, buy a dirndl (unless you miraculously have one in your closet), put on your favored music app and sing “Do-Re-Mi” with Julie Andrews, skipping and twirling around like you’re Liesl.

Moving your mom is a new beginning like when we begin to read with A B C. It is not an easy process. But it doesn’t have to be as complicated as some people make it.

With Care,

Eudora

Life Lemons and Sunflowers – October 1, 2025

Dear Eudora,

When life gives you lemons they say make lemonade. When I gave nature an empty pot it gave me sunflowers! I tell my one girlfriend that nature abhors a vacuum, and it will fill that hole up with something amazing and more than you could hope for! I guess this all boils down to faith and hope that everything is going to be ok! My own personal mood has been down in the dumps, and my life feels like an empty hole and honestly little hope to be found. Then you take a walk outside to water the plants and to my surprise the “weeds” in the pot that I have neglected to pull for over two months have turned into sunflowers! Makes me think, what weeds in my life have I not pulled out in ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years? Well, my biggest weed that needs pulling is to quit waiting for a magic seed to come and bloom into a new and different life direction and plant the ding dang seed myself! Now what that seed looks like I think is independence so I’m starting with looking for a job! Do you have any other tips for independence? Until I figure out next moves, I’m going to drink lemonade and turn toward the sun like a sunflower.

Dear Life Lemons and Sunflowers,

The lemon that unexpectedly drops in our path. The lone pot of soil available to host blooms of radiance and whimsy. The resilient weed that inches its way to four feet tall before we pluck it from the ground! Do you realize what these all have in common? The exact seed containing faith and hope that you are aiming to inhabit. Independence. 

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. You are the only one who can tend to the whispers already planted in you and guide them to flourish. Sweet sunflower leaning toward the sun already, they’re begging you to stop looking outward for a magic shower of fairy dust! 

I have three tips for you to ponder while you sip your lemonade and search for a job. First, consider viewing your twenty to fifty years of “weeds” as your personal life compost needed to enrich the garden within you. Second, view having a life compost as a blessing and proof that you are present to the art of living. Third, for when the canvas of life feels blank or directionless, we have the choice each day on to what we give our attention. The Dutch theologian, Henri Nouwen said, Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.

Choose joy. Be joy for others. The world needs it! 

With care,

Eudora

PS Sunflower, did you know sunflowers don’t hoard their happiness? They have an internal clock and face east to keep bees and other insects happy too.

PPS I’m curious to know if you ever make lemon tarts or lemon pound cake with your lemons.

The Saying Goes – July 24, 2025

Dear Eudora,

So, to be a “good” mom or caretaker the saying goes “put your oxygen mask on first, then you can help”! When it comes to ball gowns and crime scenes it’s “do not remove”! Somewhere in between these extremes is the ‘Let Them” theory. When a special occasion or a holiday approaches (Mother’s Day is always complicated), I get miffed. I don’t even want to be around them. Them being my family! I want to put my oxygen mask on, surround myself with caution tape and Let Me do me! Ticket to…xyz—beach, cocktail, quiet, and sunset all while still longing for them. Complicated ↑↓ emotions here. Well, what’s a girl to do?

Dear Complicated ↑↓ Emotions,

What causes you to get miffed? The expectations from your family? Their opinions? Feeling you must please others before yourself? Thinking a special day is supposed to look like a filtered and plumped up social media post that hides the fine lines of reality? Wondering who is taking care of or watching out for you? In other words, wondering if anyone realizes the oxygen of a “good” mother or caretaker depletes as she keeps on running and doing?

What’s a girl to do is to take her own advice and brand the “Let Me Do Me” theory. After all, Mel Robbins’ “Let Them” theory not only helped her but has changed millions of lives for the better.

Doing YOU is your xyz golden ticket from viewing your emotions as complicated to seeing them as natural feelings within your personal landscape.

Take a mental picture of “Let Me Do Me” and post it on your heart. The slow flow of beach air. The swish and shush of the lapping low tide. The tangerine sun descending, resting on the horizon. A Mai Tai with honey-lilikoi foam in your hand. A white plumeria bloom kissed with yellow tucked behind your ear. A chiffon beachy dress ruffled with a soft breeze. Sea-salt hair. Don’t care.

But you do. Even when we try to resist caring. Because once a mother or caretaker, always and forever.

You don’t need caution tape, darling. Throw caution to the wind as you do YOU without anyone else’s or your own permission or approval. The waves of your longings for solitude when family is around and to be in company with family when you’re in solitude are as natural as a tide table. Consider this your strongest tool to plan around the predictable rhythm of your emotions.

With care,

Eudora

Feeling Untethered – July 17, 2025

Dear Eudora,

I have had this card (American Greetings Mother’s Day card priced at $2.49 with message, “Know what Mom? Just want to tell you life’s really neat with a great mom like you in the driver’s seat!”) in my pile forever. It doesn’t really apply to my mom anymore and my daughter isn’t my mom. So I thought I’d send it to you. I miss the days with a rearview mirror filled with car seats and french fries—the mind tricks us and only remembers the cuteness of it, not really the hectic struggle. Moving forward in this life I feel as though the car is on the Autobahn going 1000mph. My newest grand is one month old and I haven’t met her yet—hopefully this week and my son is getting married and my mother is quickly declining faster into dementia. My sister wants to move her to assisted living and my mom is OK with it but it’s causing me anxiety. Why do I have such a hard time accepting the circle of life? Feeling untethered losing my mom, not as close as I’d like to be with my daughter. I feel waves of welling up tears. Oy, what to do Eudora. What to do? I want to go back in time.

Dear I Want to Go Back in Time,

Why is it you feel you want to go back in time? Does the grass seem greener, the soil richer? Does it feel life was less complicated when you raised your children? Do you see your younger self in your daughter who, as she presently glances at her newborn in her rearview mirror, sees the fresh road of motherhood without the sink holes, potholes, repaving, construction zones, roadkill, and sloppy beauty that are coming? Or do you see your older self in your mother who, as she presently merges with a detour of the mind, will eventually reach the end of the life road? Are you really missing the car seats and french fries? Or are you missing who you were before what often isn’t talked about or admitted behind the mask of parenting: motherhood congestion, i.e. bigger kids, bigger worries/problems?

The very good news is that your mother is accepting the idea of moving to assisted living. This is something for which to be very grateful. As is your new grandchild and your son finding the love of his life. As is being a witness to the circle of life.

Though we can’t go back in time, we can revisit what we’re missing and want to reclaim. Is this youth? Freedom? Joy? An unfilled dream? A new beginning?

Claim it. Then consider packing it in a portable personal kit filled with your favorite things—Skittles Giants, watermelon lip balm, Polly Pockets, scratch n’ sniff stickers, a pocket journal, friendship bracelets, ???—whatever makes you feel young and free like you felt at age eight. Place them in a convenient and cute pouch so you always carry it with you, especially in your car for when you visit your grandchild, son and his new wife, and your mother now and when she moves to assisted living. Only you know what your past favorites were that made you who you are today. Add a pack of tissues to catch your emotions that might arise as you try to keep up with the speed of these changes with your loved ones.

Perhaps feeling untethered is exactly what you’re supposed to be feeling. Somewhat like the speed of vehicles on the Autobahn. After all, the Autobahn is more than a limited road with a strict speed limit. It is a serious roadway system where drivers are moving forward and transporting people and goods. It is a cultural symbol of expert German construction. A well-crafted system of highways connecting the country’s regions and major cities. Driving the Autobahn is an opportunity that might be scary for a first timer but an opportunity nonetheless where one must not look too long in the rearview mirror or else she won’t as easily be able to maneuver through developing congestion.

You’re in the driver’s seat. Feed yourself the french fries and don’t forget the ketchup. I’m rooting for you!

With care,

Eudora

Horrible Words From Sibling – July 10, 2025

Dear Eudora, 

What do you do when your sibling has little to no regard or love for the aging parent and says the most horrible things trying to get me to comment? My heart breaks because she has no idea what it is like to be a mother. I’m sad for my mom too.

Dear My Heart Breaks,

I am sorry for this exchange you are having with your sibling. Dynamics with siblings as your parents age can get very strange and even strained. I hope this doesn’t happen for you. Has your sibling always been this way to you and your mother? Or has her lack of love and regard developed as your mother has aged? Everyone has a different capacity for dealing with and watching their parents age. Is it possible saying horrible things to get you to comment is your sibling’s way of coping as the mother who raised you both is now in her sunset years?

Yet, speaking hurtful words is not an excuse for her not being able to cope with your mother’s aging. Engaging in destructive talk does not bring out the best in anyone. It may be difficult to bite your tongue. But try. I think the good ‘ol saying, “If you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all,” is fitting for this scenario. If you must release your thoughts to avoid stress build up, say whatever you want to say into a pillow or better yet, while you’re taking a shower so all your words swim down the drain with the water. 

Consider keeping your focus on your mother. This focus will form a womb for her. Though it’s challenging, a nurturing womb is what we become for our aging parents. Resisting to speak ill responses to your sister will be like resisting alcohol or smoking during a pregnancy. You will be better for it and so will your mother. And ultimately, so will the relationship between you and your sister not only now, but when your mother is gone.

With care,

Eudora