My father is eighty. I watched him for one afternoon and it wore me out.
I spent the day with my dad recently, and I am not exaggerating when I tell you that watching him move around that house made me tired.
His wife, my stepmother, has significant mobility challenges. She would do everything herself if she could. She is that kind of person. But some things she simply cannot do, and so my dad does them. He sits down for two minutes and then he is back up to get her a glass of water. He sits down again and then he is up for something she cannot reach. He anticipates what she will need before she knows she needs it. He has been doing this for over thirty-five years. He knows her.
Watching him, I thought: this man is a caregiver. A real one. The kind who does not call himself that, who would probably laugh if you used the word, but who has quietly built his entire daily rhythm around the needs of the person he loves.
My dad had heart surgery not long ago. And while he is up and down all day taking care of her, she is taking care of him. She makes sure he takes his medication. She tracks his rehab appointments. She follows up with his doctors. She is his caregiver too, in a completely different form.
She cannot get him a glass of water. But she can make sure he does not skip his cardiologist.
They are caring for each other. At the same time. In entirely different ways.
I drove home thinking about how narrowly we define this. We picture one person doing everything for another person who can do nothing. It is almost never that clean.
Care comes in different currencies.
That is the idea, and once you see it you cannot stop seeing it.
The friend who never remembers your birthday but shows up within an hour when something goes wrong. The teenager who will not say a word at dinner and then quietly takes the trash out without being asked. The partner who does not talk about feelings and has changed the oil in your car every six months for twenty years.
We keep score in the currency we happen to spend in, and then we conclude that the other person is not paying.
It matters most where loss is involved. My stepmother has lost a great deal of independence. That loss is real and it is hard, and I will not minimize it. But inside that loss she still has purpose. She still has a role. She still contributes to the person she loves most.
And my dad, who is exhausted and has his own health battles and never stops moving, is still held by her. Just differently.
If you are caring for someone right now and it feels like all you do is give, I want to ask you something.
What are they still giving you?
What they are still giving, this week, in whatever currency they have left. Attention. Recognition. A hand that reaches for yours. Being glad you walked in.
Find one. Then tell them you noticed it.
Loss is part of this.
The goal is the presence of each other inside it.