Today I can count more than 20 friends or relatives who are acting as family caregivers for their loved ones. It’s probably the highest number I can remember in my adulthood.

My cousin’s wife is caring for her husband, who has oral cancer and is undergoing chemo and radiation. My girlfriend is caring for her husband with vascular dementia, and the husband of my niece, who has long COVID, is caring for my niece and their 3-year-old.

Not withstanding the marriage vows to love and care “in sickness and in health,” each caregiver never expected they would be tending an ill or disabled loved one.

In situations like these, the focus is on the person being cared for. And of course it should be. Who could not feel for a man not able to speak or swallow as his children, 6 and 8, look on?

Or my friend’s husband who has had three strokes and is in tremendous fear of the next one? Or my niece experiencing vertigo, mind fog and migraines that leave her