Dear Caregiver

You, standing at the edge of someone else’s suffering, holding it like it’s your own.  This letter is for you.

I know you likely didn’t ask to be here. Not like this. Maybe it started with a slow unraveling: a diagnosis, a forgotten name, a hospital bracelet. Or maybe it came suddenly: a stroke, a fall, a phone call that split your life into before and after. However you got here, you stayed. That matters.

And I see you.

I see your exhaustion.  The kind that sinks into your bones, that no nap or cup of coffee can fix. You carry lists in your mind like grocery bags with the handles digging into your hands: meds at 8, physical therapy at 10, call the insurance company (again), try to remember when you last took a real breath.

You speak kindly when you're running on fumes. You show up when you'd rather disappear. You cry in the shower, then dry your face and go back to making lunch for someone who may or may not remember your name. That is bravery. No medals, no parades. This is the quiet, unglamorous courage of love in action.

And I see your cracks.

I know you wonder if you’re doing enough. (You are!)
I know you snap sometimes and feel guilty about it. (You're human!)
I know you grieve people who are still here.
And I know that in the middle of it all, you’ve started to lose pieces of yourself.

But here's the secret: those cracks? They're not weaknesses. They're proof that you're still soft, still open, still loving. They're how the light gets in, and out. They're what lets the rest of us see the truth of this sacred, heartbreaking, holy work.

Caregiving is love stretched thin. It’s loyalty with blisters. It’s the art of being present even when you’re barely hanging on.

And it is enough. Even when you feel like it isn’t.

You are not failing because you’re tired.
You are not selfish for needing rest.
You are not alone, even when it feels like the world has turned away and forgotten that you’re grieving someone in real time, one breath, one day, one decline at a time.

So let me say what maybe no one else has said lately:

Thank you.
Thank you for wiping foreheads and changing sheets and sitting through endless doctor visits.
Thank you for the whispered reassurances at bedtime.
Thank you for being the keeper of dignity in a system that often forgets it.

And please, don’t forget you in all of this. You’re still in there, under the schedules and pill bottles and piles of paperwork. You’re allowed to have needs. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to say this is too damn hard. It is.

So if today you need permission to rest, here it is.
If you need to scream into a pillow, do it.
If you need to sit in silence and cry, I’ll sit with you, right here in these words.
And if you need to hear that what you're doing matters more than you know, I’m telling you now: it does. You do.

This is not a job for the faint-hearted. This is trench work. Soul work. And yes, it will break you open in places you didn’t even know existed, but it will also expand you.

Caregiving is an act of fierce, holy love.

And I see you.

Love and Light,
Nikki the Death Doula

P.S.  And if you want a community of other caregivers who really get it, I’ve got you covered.  Come on over to Caregivers United.