"We pray"

Not an easy read by any means, but Kate Clanchy on caring for two elderly parents:

"My father and I get out the advance decisions again. They are so clear. 'In the event of an infection I want to avoid heroic interventions', 'I refuse treatment with a ventilator', 'I do not want my life prolonged if the alternative is permanent nursing care'. But she didn’t have those documents with her, because she was going to the day ward. She had completed full medical attorney documents for me, but I couldn’t be there to advocate for her, because of Covid. And now she has been put on a ventilator, for her operation, and when I call the ICU they say she is stuck on it, she can’t breathe on her own. They don’t know if she will ever come off it, but if she does, they say, she will live a very limited life in a nursing home. 'We must hope she dies,' says my dad when I put down the phone. My parents are devout atheists: they believe there is no God and therefore we must live well. So do I. We pray.

Then I start scanning my mother’s documents and emailing them through to the ICU. It seems an especially hard thing to do just then, in January 2021: when the whole country is absorbed in the effort to save the lives of people like my parents, when the national psychodrama is focused on getting an elderly person on to a ventilator, not off it. I’m worried the doctor will think I am a murderer."

I have a lot to say.  I have nothing to say.  This whole piece is worth your time.

Two things -- this stuff is hard, economically, emotionally, and even sometimes physically.

Second, while I can't speak for the U.K., here in the U.S. it's difficult not to resent the fact that I am somehow harming my future professional opportunities by doing the economically sensible thing and taking care of my dad -- as if any "resume gap" is worth more than the wellbeing of people you love and who need help.

We've inherited a mercenary economic system that frankly doesn't care much for older folks, nor for the people who look after them, professional or otherwise.

And to think, my family is miles ahead of other ones in terms of available resources.

This shit is hard even if you have planned for it.