Like many of us, I am at an age where my parents are ageing, with multiple health issues, all of them serious and debilitating, some of them worsening. A year and a half ago, I was given the opportunity and made the choice to move back from the west coast to the east so that, among other things, I could care-give my parents, allowing them, with the help of a home-help agency, to stay in their home. When I made the choice, they needed a certain amount of care that I thought I could maintain, while doing my own work part-time. But when my dad had surgery the second week I was back, and rather than recovering, started having more health problems, it soon became apparent that they would need me a lot more than we had all originally thought. I thought and prayed about it, and came to the conclusion that I still really wanted, rather than felt that I should, do to this (which meant letting go of my own work for the time being). Which was really good seeing as I had just moved my life 3000 miles east.

To date, I have spent a year and a half committed to this tender endeavor, and though I have had my moments of doubt and overwhelm, they soon dissipated, and I have known that this was where I wanted to be, and that I was doing what I wanted to do be doing. In fact, it felt like a privilege to have this time with them, and for the most part things went smoothly.

But, as they are wont to do, things have shifted in the last month, and due to several factors, including deteriorating health conditions for both parents, and health issues of my own, which are not new, but are exacerbating, I have suddenly come to a place where I am feeling burned out, resentful, impatient, and exhausted (due in much part to my health issues) much of the time when I am with them.

When my own poor health pushed me to admit that I could not do this for much longer, I fell into an emotional tailspin. I was gripped by huge amounts of fear, guilt, anxiety, panic, shame, the deepest sense of sorrow, and more fear. I had an implacable, childlike belief that this could not happen- - - my parents could not go into an institutional setting, break up their home, my childhood home, the home I had shared with them for many hours every week, for the last year and a half. Everything had gone so right, so well, for so long. How could it end? Why did it have to end?

But I knew it must, because I could no longer do it, and there was no one else who could. (My three sibling had already done their stints. I was the last one in line.)

I also knew that I was deeply missing my own work, the creativity, the teaching, the writing, the richness and groundedness and sense of expansion that my work brings to me. And perhaps most persuasive of all, I knew that God and the universe were no longer going to support or cooperate with me in this endeavor, because no matter how special and important this period of my life had been, it was once again time for changes.

But how, I asked myself, how could i do it? How would it happen logistically, their moving (they were first on a waiting list of a very reputable and quality facility, specifically an assisted living situation, and had been called several times before when a bed had become available. At those times, we had not been ready. Now, I knew, we were. Sadly, because they could not afford tit, and would have to rely on Medicaid to pay for their lodging, it was doubtful that they would get a room together, and they would have to share a small double room with a stranger. This fact wrenched my heart.

And how would we, the four siblings who were already time-obligated to the breaking point, one of us living in California, find the time to break down and completely remove the contents of their house, where they had lived for 44 years? They had done a reverse mortgage, which had served them well, but this meant the house would automatically go to the bank, and we would need to clear it out immediately.

And even more frightening for me, how was I going to support myself? They had been paying me a modest sum, which would of course stop if they left the house, and I had never had the chance to get my own self known, in terms of my career, in this town after moving back from California. I design and facilitate personal growth and development workshops, and am a life coach. But although I had grown up in the town, no one knew this aspect of me here, and I had a feeling that it was going to be a tougher audience in mid coast Maine than in northern California. Plus, I was exhausted, and there would be so much to do to square away their business, as well as the time needed to visit them as often as possible in their new, and to me, sad settings.

But the worst of the pain was "How can I bear them no longer being in their old life", their real life, their home, with their beloved cat and their window view of the trees right outside their dining room table, where they spent hours watching the birds and chipmunks and squirrels play out their dance with the seed that my parents provided them? and "How can they bear it?" I felt terrified and traumatized.

I had been and continued to pray for help, guidance, perspective, awareness, answers. I prayed for the willingness and faith to let go of it, to place it in the hands of the Universe, of Spirit; to fall back into the place where I believed beyond doubt that a benevolent and powerful force could and would easily orchestrate this whole season of their and my lives if I could simply step aside.

One day I was taking my walk on Beauchamp Point, a well-kept dirt road that followed beside the ocean, the Maine woods close by on the other side. I was alternately thinking of all these things, praying, and looking out at the zingingly blue sky and the champagne bubble sea, breathing in deeply the smells of ocean and pine and dirt, the smells that clear my head and make me dizzy with gratitude and happiness. The sunlight fell on my face even as the cool ocean breeze played over it.

When I reached the end of my walk, I scrambled down to the water to sit in the sun on some rocks and watch the tide playing with the waves. My prayers intensified as I sat there. I wanted to open my heart and my head as much as possible, knowing the more I was willing to open myself up, the more the Universe would have space to work its magic on this situation.

I was praying silently, "Please help me to have the courage and the strength to walk through this, please bring to me the massive faith I need, " and so on, when I blurted out loud, "Please, don't let my parents think I have betrayed them".

This statement brought me up so short I stopped praying and broke into tears. I suddenly knew what lay at the the heart of all my fears, the thing I realized I couldn't bear: that they would perceive this as me betraying them, me abandoning them. I immediately recognized it was the thought of a child, a child who had been wounded deeply in childhood and who had taken care of her parents since she was very small.

I had indeed had a painful childhood, and I had also parented my parents, instead of the other way around, because they were incapable of it, and, my little psyche knew that in order to survive, I must do everything in my power to keep them on an even keel. There had been no time for a childhood.

As a young adult, I was still deeply ensconced in my care taking role with them, as well as with most of the important people in my life.

I began therapy at age 31, and did it intensively (all different, helpful, life-changing kinds of therapy) for a number of years. At 32, my father and I did some therapy together, and after that he went on to do his own for a time. All of this helped to heal my broken childhood and my relationships with my parents.

By the time I moved back to Maine a year and a half ago, to do some legitimate care giving, my codependency issues were about 25 shades lighter than they had been when I first started therapy. Which is why I was able to care give them for that time with true love and desire, respect, tenderness, compassion and humor, and with a lack of resentment. Resentment is my cue that I am no longer doing something out of true desire but out of a sense of guilt. "When helping you is hurting me, that is co-dependence", said one of my wise and helpful therapists,and for me, it is true.

However, as I had just been so intensely informed, my little girl still held at the center of her heart the belief that it was her job to never let my parents down, and she was terrified that they would stop loving her if they perceived that she was doing this now. I cried for a while, feeling her profound pain, while at the same time I remembered. I remembered how I would get through this colossal and seemingly impossible transition: the dismantling of my childhood home, of my parents ageing and eventually dying, of the necessity of them going into a care-facility, of our changing roles, and perhaps most importantly, the dissolving of this ancient, painful claim on my little girl's heart.

I remembered how I would move through this just as I have moved though many other tumultuous and painful, yet necessary, changes. I would do it slowly, one day at a time. I would pray and pray and pray some more. I would let myself cry when I needed to, even make an effort to allow that grief room to emerge. The same with getting angry. I would ask my friends to listen to me about these things. I would ask for their wisdom and perspective. I would write in my journal. I would talk with others who had gone through this stage already. I would get therapy for some of the more stuck places in my psyche, so I could be reminded of (taught?) the truth. I would work on being kind and compassionate with my self, my fear, my confusion.

I would remember that this was one of the darker, more interior phases of my life, and I would work to honor and respect that. I would seek out silences, in nature, in works of art, in architecture, in my apartment on a Sunday afternoon.

And I would get out into the sunshine and fresh air, by the sea, in fields of grass and flowers, as often as possible. I would make an effort to be grateful for all that I had. I would watch movies, read books, listen to music, laugh with my friends, stay close to my family, do some creative work, rest, eat well, exercise, watch children playing, as much as I possibly could.

I would remember that the Universe works with an eloquence and serendipity that far surpasses anything I could bring about or even imagine. I would remember that there are seasons in all our lives, painful as they may be, and my parents had their own paths to follow, as do we all. I would remember that the more I was true to myself, the more loving and respectful I was being to my parents. I would attempt to let go of my will and allow the magic and healing to begin, as it has so many other times in my life. Most importantly, I would remember that I - - - and they- - - would be okay.