Helping my parents move.
The house they have lived in for so long feels tired, holding the weight of all the years within its walls.
I am helping them clear the house.
Saving the important.
Disposing of the less important.
And it’s hard.
Because there is nothing of no importance.
They are in their 80s.
Struggling with their health, with the day-to-day.
And so, we are helping them transition.
Helping them let move to the next chapter of their lives.
The move is to a supported home, close to my sister.
Closer to her children.
A place without the stairs that I have come to see as a potential death trap.
The feeling is a strange mix of painful and a relief.
The relief is sharp, almost selfish. The relief of knowing they will be safe, that the constant, low-level worry will ease.
The pain is theirs. It is the letting go of a home, of independence, of a life they knew. It is the quiet grief of acknowledging this final chapter.
We in the sandwich generation do what we can.
And on the other side of the world, my own school-age children miss me.
I see their faces on a screen, their voices a digital echo in my ear. A connection that is both a miracle and a painful reminder of the distance.
I feel torn.
Pulled between duties, between geographies, between past and future.
The duty to the parents who raised me, and the duty to the children I am raising.
It is a long way to stretch.
A very long way.
But you do.
Stretching the love around the planet for us all.
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