The Kind Point March 27, 2025

MUSCLE MEMORY

Hi! I'm Jeff, if you're reading this, it's because I view you as someone I'd want to sit down over matcha and chat about life with. I'll be sending this newsletter out every few weeks or so. If it's not your jam, feel free to unsubscribe, I won't be offended!

My mom’s dog Maggie went blind over a year ago and is currently wearing one of those cones so she can’t scratch at an abscess on her leg. She plowed into me while I stood at my mom’s hall closet, trying to figure out which of Mom's black coats she wanted me to pack.

Maggie heard me open the closet door and assumed it was time to go for a walk. So when she and her cone collided with both of my calves, I lost my balance and stepped back. My feet got tangled up in a pile of shoes behind me and I spun around, then hit the armrest of Mom’s couch with the back of my legs. Falling backward onto the cushions, here was the thought bubble above my head: "This is how caregivers die."

The week hadn’t gone according to plan.

Mom had a TIA, which I can explain to you because I now have a medical degree from Wikipedia: a stroke adjacent, or stroke-light that didn’t leave any permanent damage, but required six days in the hospital and major surgery to unclog a carotid artery.

Mom was a trooper, and by all accounts, the surgery went well. My amazing sister, Jen, project-managed the whole thing, and I drove up to Seattle so we could tag team her care.

Mom is doing so much better now, but during that first week when we didn’t know what was up or how she would fare, things went from zero to hectic in 3.2 seconds flat.

I had no idea where Mom kept her extra medications, or which day was garbage day. Maggie kept working her tongue through a narrow slit in that smelly cone so she could lick off the ointment we had to put on her leg four times a day. The creeping dread of my mom’s mortality made my brain fuzzy, complicating simple tasks. After a few days of caring for her and her blind, coned dog at home, I was left wondering a few things.

1. How do parents and caregivers do it? Especially while juggling work? For two mornings in a row, I actually forgot to feed my mom and me. Just forgot. I was trying to get so many other things done that biology slipped my mind. I can’t tell you the last time I skipped a meal.
2. Peanut butter is useful: for a quick meal (especially when you forget to feed someone), for extra protein, for a trick to make a dog swallow an antibiotic, or for a safe jar to smell while trying not to cry.
3. You have to pack a lot of things in the car when you go anywhere with an elderly mother and her newly acquired walker, and a blind dog with a cone. If I were the head of marketing for a major automobile maker, all I would focus on are the nooks and crannies where you can pack things: power bars, handy wipes, walkers and canes, leashes, poop bags. Who cares about mileage or a “smooth ride”?
4. Thank God for Medicare and supplemental insurance. It was a rough enough week. What about all the people who go through a mini stroke and then incur tens of thousands in debt? What about when their caregivers get knocked over by a dog with a cone and must go to the hospital themselves and don’t have insurance?

For those of you who have been parents and caregivers forever, I can hear you eye-rolling all the way through my computer screen. “A few days of this and you have insights?”

I might understand intellectually what it’s like to be a caregiver, but I sure as hell lack the muscle memory needed to think through things in the heat of the moment instead of succumbing to decision fatigue.

But leave it to a writer to experience the teensiest bit of something and then type a bunch of words about it.

I asked my mom how she and Dad managed it all when my sister and I were toddlers.

“It was easier than when you and Jenny were older,” she said, looking off into the distance like a veteran remembering past battles.

“Because we were moody assholes?”

“Because it was easier to figure out how to soothe you as toddlers. That wasn’t the case when you kids were teenagers.”

Oh. Right. That would be a whole new level of “Thank God I don’t have teenagers right now,” and “I really don’t know anything.”

If any of above sounds like an average morning in your house, I’d love to hear from you, especially regarding when things really jump the tracks. What happens? How do you find the brain power or instincts to deal with it? Any tips to share for caregivers in training? Please respond.

Also, if you are a caregiver or parent, may you find a moment of peace amid today’s chaos. If it helps, stick your nose in a jar of peanut butter for a restorative whiff.

If you have parents or caregivers in your life, send them some extra love today.

Something Kind

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What I'm Enjoying ​Courtney Martin's Substack Article: The hungry ghosts of fading men​ Martin writes beautifully about the tender care her father needs right now, even while uncovering the notion that we collectively abhor men who are dependent and vulnerable, and ignore the fact that the vast majority of caregiving is done by women. She takes on Trump and other men in the White House administration for hating their own dependency so much that all they can do is try to scorch it from the earth. ​Enjoy it here.​

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