With considerable help from my wife, Patrice, I admitted my mother to a home specializing in memory care nearly nine years ago. We worked to understand, then wind up Mom’s everyday affairs; prepare a plan…

Losing someone is one of life’s most difficult experiences. In the days immediately following a death, emotions often feel overwhelming, yet there are still important responsibilities that need your attention. Between making arrangements, notifying family…

I open the FaceTime app, make sure my house and my kid are presentable (if you are Latino, you know), and press call. My father lives in Colombia, in a small town near Medellín, about…

I grew up hearing my grandmother say that she was afraid of dying. As she would put it, “If death were rest, I would rather live tired.” My grandmother was always a spirited person, with…

My mother was smart and one of the wisest people I’ve known. She had a PhD in psychology and also very high EQ (emotional intelligence or emotional quotient). I was a fragile child and rebellious…

Over the last year, I have come to understand caregiving differently.  Not as an abstract concept. Not as a framework on a page. Not even only as a professional conversation, though I work at the Institute…