Taking care of my dad before he passed in 2020 was a very difficult full-time job. I did it because I loved him, but I also did it because I was privileged enough to have the means.

I didn't have to go to work, and I had few other responsibilities keeping me from leaping to his aid when he needed it.

But I was lucky.

My sister wanted to take care of him, but she couldn't. He visited her a few times, with the general thinking that maybe he'd go live down there, but the difficult realities of his declining health made it obvious that that would be no solution.

With teenage children and a full-time job, she could never have done it.

But as lucky as I was, the full-time job of taking care of my dad wore on me and harmed my mental health. He was sometimes in a great deal of pain and distress, and I usually couldn't do anything practical to help him with that. If he'd been in a care facility, staff could have given him medication quickly to soothe him and ease his pain and distress.

He could have enjoyed a lot more socializing as well.

Those benefits would have come at the cost of being separated from his beloved dog and from the community he had deep roots in. I think we made the right decision, but I'm not sure we did. We just did what felt right at the time.

I would never criticize or think badly of anyone for making a different decision!