Steven LaChance Blog

I’ve noticed a lot of people my age going through major life changes with their parents.

Usually it begins when one parent passes away, leaving the other behind, sometimes no longer able to live on their own.

In my case, after my dad died, my mother was left with dementia and unable to live alone. I have two brothers, and I thought we would share the responsibility by taking turns having our mom stay with us for a few months at a time. My brothers lived close to her. I lived in Mexico.

It was the week of my father’s funeral when I first asked my mother if she wanted to come stay with us for part of the year. I knew she would need a passport, which I was willing to pay for, along with traveling to get her and bringing her home with me.

She said no.

I asked her several more times over the following weeks, and there was no amount of convincing that changed her mind. I am not sure what my brothers offered her either, but she did not want to move there as well.

Eventually my mother was placed into a Memory Care Center, where she has now been for over a year. She seems to be doing well there. Of course I would have wanted things differently. But I also know I did the best I could, and what my father would have expected me to do.

For those of you going through something similar, please know you are not alone.

Everyone around you is going to have opinions about what you should be doing and how you should be handling it. Don’t let them guilt you. Follow your heart. Do the best you can with the reality in front of you.

What have I learned from all of this?

I learned a great deal about how important it is to prepare your own affairs before your time comes. My parents made some mistakes that taught me valuable lessons about planning, communication, and difficult decisions.

But most importantly, I learned that a lot more people are carrying this pain quietly than we realize.

You are not alone.