To me, family caregiving has always been a natural part of life. In fact, my very first memories of my grandmother were of her taking care of her mother. My great-grandmother was bedridden and had Alzheimer’s disease, and as the oldest daughter of nine children, my grandmother felt it was her duty and obligation to take care of her mother. In our culture and our family, that is just what you do.

Because my grandmother rarely if ever left her apartment, my mother made sure to take us to visit her every week so that she would know her grandchildren – and we would know her. It was on those visits that I witnessed caregiving in such a profound and passionate way, as my grandmother tended to every little detail and need of my great-grandmother, even feeding and bathing her. She was such a natural nurturer and caregiver that when her mother died at the age of 93, my grandmother came to live with us and started giving us all of her time and energy.

Unfortunately, she too would develop Alzheimer’s, on top of which she fell – twice – which required her to undergo two hip surgeries within one year. The active woman I had always known began to decline quickly after that, and my working mother had little choice but to place her in an assisted living facility – albeit a very nice one in a residential home type setting.

Though there’s always going to be some guilt – no matter how nice the facility – you shouldn’t let that stand in the way of making the best and necessary choices for you and your family. My mother was equally obligated to her family as her mother had been, and would visit her every single day after work, and on the weekends too. If there was financial stress paying for the facility (as is often the case in many families), I didn’t know about it; only that my mother was doing all she could to provide the best care for my grandmother.

Having been through these types of family caregiver situations since childhood – whether in the home or at a care facility – they were accepted and expected normal parts of life for me. But I’ve learned through recent experience with my husband’s family, that this type of situation can hit people extra hard if they haven’t lived through it before themselves. When my father-in-law became ill, he too with Alzheimer’s, it was almost too much for his wife and my husband to bear. They were always a small, close-knit family, without extended family growing older around them, and so this was a new experience that put them through the emotional and psychological wringer.

Because I had been through it so many times before, I found myself stepping in to help as best I could, if not with the emotional pain, then with the practical steps we had to take and the reaching out to resources that were already in place to help – because no one should go through something like this alone.

Eventually, we had to place my father-in-law in a care facility, as he was becoming more fragile and had developed Sundowner’s Syndrome, or sundowning, a condition where dementia patients become more agitated at twilight and are more likely to wander off. Like my mother had done in a similar situation, my mother-in-law visited him every day, knowing how important it was to be physically present – not just for him but to help her get through it too.

Based on this latest experience and all the ones that came before, I would offer these three pieces of advice to other family caregivers in similar situations:

• Nobody should be silent; don’t be shy to ask for help. There are many resources out there, and they’re easier to find than ever these days through their online presence. I recommend two in particular: A Place for Mom and the Alzheimer’s Association, two of the most phenomenally helpful non-profits out there.
• Join a local support group and share with others going through similar experiences, whether it’s Alzheimer’s or another disease or caregiving in general. There’s no better support than what you can get from others in the same circumstances – and they can help you find some comfort and closure by seeing you’ve done all you could through another’s eyes.
• Let people go through whatever degree of sadness and grief they need to process and deal with the situation at hand – it may be all new to them as it was for my husband’s family. But if you notice it turning to depression and affecting their quality of life, seek a doctor’s medical advice. This is the normal cycle of life, and if you can help someone get through the short-term, time will take care of the rest.