People ask me why I don’t put my mom in a long-term care home. What they don’t realize is that it has been a blessing to have her at home with me. I have been learning so much about her that I didn’t already know.

After my father passed away three years ago, we knew the time had come to bring my mother to live with us. My mother is in the early stages of dementia, so having her live with me allows me to regulate her eating, make sure she’s getting enough exercise and be there for her to make sure she feels well. Although she is still quite independent, I feel like I need to pay a great deal of attention to her—I can’t just go away on vacation without considering who will take care of her. When I used to think about caregiving, I thought about it in terms of taking care of kids. I never considered that one day I would need to take care of my parents.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created its share of scares, especially when my mom got sick early in the pandemic, and I had to take her to the hospital. I essentially had to drop everything in my life for a couple of days. Luckily, my employer has given me the flexibility to work from home during the pandemic, which has been a silver lining for me for the last two years. I can just walkout of my home office if my mom needs anything, and I share coffee breaks with her while she tells me stories of her youth.

Since my mother is an immigrant from El Salvador, I have stood as her sponsor. This means that I am unable to access government funding for PSWs. That is another reason why working from home has been a great relief for me. Working for a company that supports me as I look after mom means the world to me.