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“Mom wrote everything down.  After she passed away, I found a bunch of her journals, and some were from her therapy. I knew that she’d been ill basically from the time I was eight years old, but I guess I didn’t understand the full weight of it because she still tried to make my childhood fun. I remember we went to the movies, but only on Monday or Tuesday afternoons when the theater would be mostly empty. I didn’t even realize until later in high school that most people went to the mall or movies on weekends. She had been diagnosed with agoraphobia, complex PTSD, anxiety, and depression. We planned everything around when there wouldn’t be too many people.

Apparently, at some point she told me she was too scared to go outside in our backyard, and my response was, 'Well, let’s do it together.' So when it was nice out, we’d go onto the back porch and I would lay on the ground and do my homework while she did hers- which was to just try to sit outside for fifteen minutes. Then we would just walk to the end of our cul-de-sac and back. And I would do it with her almost every day.

My oldest brother died about ten years later, when I was nineteen, and that’s when her health really shifted. Dad was still working as a truck driver and was away most of the time, so when I moved back to Richmond after university, I started doing the grocery shopping and taking her to her doctor’s appointments. I was also working two jobs at the time and working at the church. It was a lot. And there were some days when I was kinda shitty about it, because I also wanted to live my life. Occasionally, other relatives would offer to help out, but she felt more comfortable with me helping, so it just kinda became our dynamic for a long time until Dad retired.

When he eventually did, it took some of the pressure off, but I knew her doctors and if she wanted me to come back with her in the appointments, I would. My goal was always for her to be as independent as possible, so we got her set up downstairs with her own refrigerator and little George Foreman skillet so she could cook for herself, but I still had to help her with things around the house. And when she fell, I had to get her back up. She’d get too nervous and unsure and become deadweight. That’s part of the reason I started working out as hard as I did- because I wanted to be able to pick her up.

That first year after she died, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I almost felt like a rebellious twenty-something, getting to finally go out and do whatever I wanted. I think that’s when I realized just how much of my identity had become wrapped up in taking care of her.  And my dad, in his recognition of all that I’d done, wanted me to be able to be free to do that. But I still run the household: I manage the finances and make all of the appointments. And now his health is declining pretty rapidly.

He’s been falling a lot lately. Just yesterday, I was going to head to the gym before work as I usually do and I got a call from my niece telling me that he had fallen and he wanted me to come and pick him up. I got downstairs and found him curled up in the bottom of his closet, covered in blankets. He had fallen the night before when he was changing clothes.

I said, “Dad, why didn’t you call me last night?”  And he said, 'Well, I knew you were asleep and you needed your rest.'  So he had waited until the morning and had tried to make himself comfortable. We’ve kinda gotten this routine down when he falls, because I know he wants to do as much as he can to help himself, so I’ve learned to give him a lot of reassurance. I tell him, 'You can lean on me, you’ve got this.'  So I got him up and made sure he was good and he went on about his day but by that point, I’d missed my window for the gym. But he was safe, and that’s the important thing.  It’s little things like that though- there’s this unseen toll. No one really talks about or sees what it’s like.”

 He and I have already talked about his death plan, so it’s in the back of my mind that this is the next thing coming. This time around, I know I can’t do it all on my own and thankfully, I’m not. It takes a really special person to come in like Andrew did and say, 'we’re gonna do this together.' They never once made it feel like it was a burden. We’ve been married now for seven months and yes, we’re living our lives in that regard and I’m still working a full-time job, but it’s not like I’m going to forget my dad’s needs or desires. There’s no way to turn that part off.”

-Jamie Patterson

Jaime’s struggle is not unique. But something has shifted in the twenty plus years of her role as caretaker for her parents. The work didn’t disappear, nor did the vigilance. Over time, though, it was met with a radical self-acceptance, the ungrasping of a decades-long belief that what she carried alone would be too heavy to hand off to anyone else. But just as she once reassured her own mom, she’s discovering for herself in this new season of her life that “Let’s do it together” is the only way care can be sustained.