Thank you for your article. As one who saw no option other than to take an early retirement (age 55) I appreciate your suggestion of reaching out. Financially, walking away from my career was either insanity or an act of faith. Have faith, I tell myself, because you’re doing the right thing. My mom has no one else left, and I couldn’t abandon her, nor could I continue effectively with my career and do what needed to be done. The stress would have hollowed me out even more than the financial burden of walking away. It has been a year and I consider myself fortunate because my mom had the money to move into a very nice senior apartment complex. They have a cafeteria, nursing staff if needed, transportation, fun activities, and most of all, for my mom, friends. She was widowed after a 60 year marriage and sitting in her house depressed and alone. She is also battling Alzheimer’s and was not doing much care for herself, like cooking. So that she can afford a nice place and is safe takes a huge burden off my shoulders. Many do not have this option and caretaking takes over their lives indefinitely. Even though mom is safe, in a very nice apartment, I still do her laundry, her shopping, manage her medical care and finances. Even this has been more than I ever expected or realized. It has been one year since my life has indelibly changed. Financially I am now looking at temporary work to start getting out of debt. Beyond that, I have my own retirement to worry about, for I have nothing saved. I have lost my identity, my tribe so to speak, when I ventured into seeing that my mom was cared for. When I left my career, one coworker told me she was jealous, and now would not even give me a letter of recommendation, where as before she wrote me a recommendation for graduate school (there’s another casualty of my financial situation.) To that, I wish I could tell her, you would have hated me more if I had stayed. I say that because my staying would have put a huge burden on my co-workers because of the amount of time I would have been having to take off to see to my mom. So, I see what I did as necessary. It was not what I had planned for my life. Not at all. I’m still shell shocked. So thank you for your suggestion of reaching out to caretakers. I really appreciate it. Any kindness and caring you can extend to those of us that are caretakers, or those that we caretake, is like a light in the dark. A little empathy and understanding goes a long way. We will all be old some day. We can only hope we have someone who loves us.