How do you pray when you’re caring for someone with a progressive, debilitating disease? How do you pray for someone else facing a diagnosis that offers little hope? And, really, why pray at all?

No one wants to be less-than. No one wants to need help. But I’m learning that’s a mindset I just need to put behind me.

Report on a wonderful weekend: I’m learning to celebrate the glad while not denying the sad.

For many dozens of weeks, I’ve been forming new habits, taking over new responsibilities, and adding more and more items to my subconscious “don’t forget” list. And today I don’t completely remember what it was like before my current state of constant on-call.

I need slowly (or maybe not so slowly) to come to terms with the realization that caregiving is now my primary duty, not something added on or just accommodated.

When I wrote that “How’s your wife doing?” may not be the most helpful question to ask, I evidently touched a nerve.

Happy birthday? I’m not unhappy, but as I celebrate today I’ll focus on a more substantive emotion.

We want to associate “joy” with “happiness,” but anyone coping with loss longs for something deeper. And this joy, when we find it, sometimes comes with pain.

Any of us might seek a calling to something grand and important. But I’ve decided my calling today is the person right in front of me.

Many have told me “you must take care of yourself.” I’ve never disagreed, but I’m still figuring out how to do what they’re suggesting.

Do you cry? I know I’m not the only one who puddles up often. And now that I’m a caregiver, I’m coming to understand what’s behind some of those tears.

“I don’t know if I’m a companion or a caregiver.” “Why choose? Why can’t you be both?” There’s hope and joy for me in that answer.

I was a caretaker two years before I was willing publicly to wear the label. Today I’m thinking about what taking that step has accomplished for me.

Of everything added to my growing list of caregiver duties, to remember feels the most urgent.