{"id":21201,"date":"2026-03-11T10:43:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T10:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/uncategorized\/a-take-charge-caregiver-learns-the-value-of-asking-for-help\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:11:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:11:43","slug":"a-take-charge-caregiver-learns-the-value-of-asking-for-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/positive-living\/health-and-wellness\/caregiving\/family-caregiving\/aging-parents\/a-take-charge-caregiver-learns-the-value-of-asking-for-help\/","title":{"rendered":"A Take-Charge Caregiver Learns the Value of Asking for Help"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a take-charge person. My motto has always been \u201cIf it\u2019s to be, then it\u2019s up to me.\u201d But this phone call from my husband Michael\u2019s 90-year-old grandmother blindsided me.<\/p>\n

\u201cBob is nearing his 100-day skilled nursing limit,\u201d Mam Ma said. \u201cHe\u2019s still not able to care for himself. Can you find a place we can live near you? We have until January 25.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d known Mam Ma\u2019s 68-year-old son, Bob, had been having falling spells in October and gone to a nursing home for inpatient physical therapy. But I was clueless about Medicare and what it did and didn\u2019t pay for. It had never occurred to me that he\u2019d need someplace entirely new to live. Within six weeks, no less!<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll see what I can find,\u201d I said and hung up, feeling the weight of responsibility on my shoulders. There was no one else to help her. My husband\u2019s mom, Mam Ma\u2019s daughter, had died decades ago, and I was the only one in the family under 60 who didn\u2019t work full-time. Part of me liked being the one everyone turned to. The one who got things done. But this would go beyond finding a home for Mam Ma, Bob and John, her older son, who\u2019d lived with Mam Ma his entire life in Poteau, Oklahoma, three hours east of us.<\/p>\n

The three of them moving to Oklahoma City would mean more calls needing help\u2014and more responsibilities for me\u2014for years to come. I didn\u2019t want to be selfish, but I had our teenage daughter, Micah, to raise<\/a>, plus my part-time job, Bible study leadership duties, volunteer commitments. All I could think about was how caregiving would take over my life. Just this move was going to consume the lion\u2019s share of my time for months. Finding Mam Ma and her sons a suitable place to live. Getting their current homes emptied and sold. It was mid-December, my schedule jam-packed with holiday activities. Lord, I can\u2019t do all this, <\/em>I thought, though I wasn\u2019t expecting much help. God was delegating this to me. After all, he\u2019d created me to be a take-charge woman.<\/p>\n

The thing was, Mam Ma and I had already gone through this exercise about a year ago. She\u2019d come to Oklahoma City to look at some retirement communities with cottages. We\u2019d visited a dozen facilities, but none seemed right. I loved Mam Ma as if she were my own grandmother. She was a spunky go-getter like me. I couldn\u2019t imagine her being happy about leaving the town where she\u2019d lived the past 70 years.<\/p>\n

Then in October, Bob had moved in with Mam Ma because he kept falling. He\u2019d lived alone for decades, despite his neuropathy. But now his condition was worsening. He couldn\u2019t walk on his own, even with a walker. That\u2019s why he\u2019d gone into the nursing home for rehabilitation.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d watched three other grandmothers move into retirement centers. No matter how luxurious, how good the food, how close they were to family, each of them had regretted leaving their own homes. Mam Ma and John had lived in the same house for all 69 years of his life. The church they went to was three blocks up the street. Everything was familiar. Moving to the big city, not knowing a soul besides Michael, his brother and their dad\u2019s families would be a huge adjustment<\/a>. No, Mam Ma wasn\u2019t ready. I definitely <\/em>wasn\u2019t ready. Maybe that\u2019s why, even after this latest call, I dragged my feet. I figured Bob could continue to rehab at the Poteau nursing home. A few days before Christmas, I called Mam Ma on her cell phone. It went to voice mail, but she never called back. That evening I tried her landline.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone stole my car from in front of the house,\u201d she said. \u201cMy purse and phone were in it. I\u2019d come from the nursing home and been so exhausted that I accidentally left the keys in the ignition. The police say they\u2019re going to question the folks in the drug house across the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drug house? <\/em>We\u2019d visited Mam Ma enough to know her neighborhood had gone downhill, but I didn\u2019t realize it was that bad. I took a deep breath. \u201cI haven\u2019t forgotten about finding you that new place,\u201d I said. \u201cDon\u2019t worry. I\u2019m on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I hung up and typed assisted living centers near me <\/em>into a search engine on my smartphone. I wanted a facility that had independent and assisted living in the same building, so Mam Ma and her sons could stay close to each other. I don\u2019t know what I was expecting to find\u2014after all, we\u2019d toured everywhere last year.<\/p>\n

Something popped up in the search results\u2014a place I\u2019d never seen before, with exactly the setup I wanted. I visited the next day. They had immediate openings for two apartments, both on the first floor. Bob could be in assisted living<\/a> while John and Mam Ma could be in independent living, a gorgeous two-bedroom apartment. Her car and phone had been recovered, and I texted her photos. \u201cIt looks wonderful,\u201d she said. For the life of me, I couldn\u2019t imagine how we\u2019d missed this place the previous year. Michael, Micah and I drove to Poteau for Christmas, our SUV stuffed with the dinner I\u2019d prepared and flattened moving boxes. After we ate, we showed Mam Ma how to assemble the boxes and pull packing tape across the bottom. Mam Ma struggled with the tape. \u201cJust use your energy for packing,\u201d I said. \u201cWe\u2019ll do the boxes.\u201d<\/p>\n

I devised a plan. Mam Ma would sort items\u2014deciding what to donate, to sell and to take with her. We\u2019d come back the following weekend to pack them in boxes. But the next weekend, a rare snowstorm hit. The roads were too bad to travel.<\/p>\n

Now there were only three weekends left until January 25, and one of them was Micah\u2019s soccer tournament. Mam Ma was going to have to get rid of three quarters of her things. There were two cars to sell. And I had to get both Mam Ma\u2019s and Bob\u2019s houses on the market. I can\u2019t do all this!<\/em><\/p>\n

I found a moving company, and a real estate agent met with Mam Ma. I contacted used car dealers and had Mam Ma call the utility companies. What was I forgetting?<\/p>\n

The first Saturday in January, we got to Mam Ma\u2019s to find her porch filled with sturdy boxes, already assembled. \u201cA cafeteria worker at the middle school brings them when they\u2019re emptied,\u201d Mam Ma said. We went inside. Boxes sat sealed and stacked in every room.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome ladies from church came over and packed my curio and china cabinets,\u201d Mam Ma said. \u201cThe woman I volunteer with at the clothing closet took the clothes I don\u2019t wear, and a friend from music club helped me pack up the kitchen. Since I don\u2019t plan on cooking anymore, it was easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

With her house nearly done, Mam Ma suggested we shift to Bob\u2019s. I took the kitchen, Michael the living room, and Micah and Mam Ma sorted through clothes in his bedroom. After two hours, I had barely made a dent.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cleaned out the garage, attic and storage shed,\u201d a voice said. I turned. It was Mam Ma\u2019s yard guy. Unbeknownst to me, she\u2019d recruited him to help. Suddenly my one room didn\u2019t seem that difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the way, the neighbors next door are interested in buying this house for their daughter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The day before the move I drove to Mam Ma\u2019s, expecting a full day of work. But there was hardly anything left to do. The daughter of a friend of hers had volunteered to hold a rummage sale for everything we weren\u2019t moving. But their cars remained. I couldn\u2019t leave them parked at her vacant house, and local dealers weren\u2019t offering fair prices. \u201cWhat about selling them on Facebook?\u201d Mam Ma said.<\/p>\n

That will never work, <\/em>I thought. Mam Ma didn\u2019t exactly have a huge social media following. She had a private page with 167 Facebook friends. But I took photos of the cars and posted them to her account, hoping it would take her mind off her house being emptied. I knew it couldn\u2019t be easy for her.<\/p>\n

Within minutes, people responded. Both cars had buyers before the movers were even finished. \u201cBoy, word really travels fast on the internet,\u201d Mam Ma said. \u201cYou know, I\u2019m looking forward to making a new start. It\u2019s kind of exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

I stared at her. I\u2019d always thought of Mam Ma as being like me. Strong-willed. Independent. And she was. Yet she gladly accepted help<\/a>. She wasn\u2019t afraid to ask for it either, from friends or from God. Even at 90, she was up for new challenges. I\u2019d never heard her complain about being a caregiver for her sons. These past few months, she\u2019d taught me a lot about faith, about trusting God\u2014and the people he puts in our lives\u2014when things seem overwhelming. If it\u2019s to be, it isn\u2019t all up to me<\/a>. <\/em>There was a lot I could learn from her still.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, it\u2019s going to be awesome, Mam Ma,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m going to like having you a phone call away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more: 5 Tips for Long-Distance Caregiving<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For more inspiring stories, subscribe to <\/em>Guideposts<\/strong><\/a> magazine<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a take-charge person. My motto has always been \u201cIf it\u2019s to be, then it\u2019s up to me.\u201d But this phone call from my husband Michael\u2019s 90-year-old grandmother blindsided me. \u201cBob is nearing his 100-day skilled nursing limit,\u201d Mam Ma said. \u201cHe\u2019s still not able to care for himself. Can you find a place we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[381],"tags":[47,210,11],"ppma_author":[647],"class_list":["post-21201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aging-parents","tag-aging","tag-caregiving","tag-helping-others"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Take-Charge Caregiver Learns the Value of Asking for Help - Guideposts Articles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Take-Charge Caregiver Learns the Value of Asking for Help\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m a take-charge person. 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