you are allowed to hand some of this to someone else

Most of the families I work with reach me through the same person. Not the parent, and rarely the sibling who lives three states away, but the one adult child who somehow became the person who drives.

It happened gradually, the way these things always do. A ride to a follow-up appointment because it seemed simpler than explaining the parking garage over the phone. Then the standing Thursday afternoon. Then the eye doctor, the dentist, the pharmacy on the way home, and the lunch with an old friend that matters more than any of the appointments and is somehow the first thing to get cut when the week gets tight.

Nobody decides to become that person. You look up one day and realize your calendar has quietly reorganized itself around someone else's, and that you have started saying no to things — a meeting, a weekend away, a trip you had been looking forward to — without quite noticing that you are saying no.

I want to say something plainly, because I think it often goes unsaid in families: the fact that you are able to keep doing all of it does not mean you should keep doing all of it.

In my experience the schedule is not the first thing that breaks. It is the quality of the time. When you are the one driving, you are also the one watching the clock, working out where to park, thinking about the call you have to be back for at two. The visit becomes logistics. Your parent, who is sharper about these things than most families give them credit for, feels that. They start apologizing for the trouble. They start saying they can skip it, that it is not important, that they will just wait until the next time you are already coming.

And so the appointments they actually need, and the outings that make the week worth something, quietly begin to disappear. That is the real cost, and it never shows up on anyone's calendar.

Handing part of it to someone else is not giving up, and it is not handing your parent off. It is deciding what you want your time with them to be. I have watched a daughter walk into her mother's building with nothing in her hands and nothing on her mind except her mother, because she was not the one who had just spent forty minutes in traffic and ten more circling for a space. That is a different visit, and everyone in the room can feel the difference.

If you do decide to hand some of it over, it is worth being particular about who you hand it to.

Ask whether it will be the same person every time. A parent who is unsteady on their feet, or who is slower to warm up than they used to be, should not have to start over with a stranger each week and explain again which side to offer an arm on. I drive every ride myself, which is the whole reason I keep the number of families I work with small.

Ask what happens before the car door. The trip does not begin at the curb. It begins in a hallway or a front room, and often it begins with a coat that needs finding and a morning that is moving more slowly than expected. Whether someone treats those minutes as part of the work, or as a delay, tells you most of what you need to know.

Ask how they speak about your parent when your parent is standing right there. Not around them, not over them, and not in the bright raised voice people sometimes use without realizing they are doing it.

And notice whether they understand what the trip is actually for. A specialist's office in Barrington, a family lunch, a Sunday service, a hearing appointment that has already been put off twice — none of those are the same errand as dropping off a package, and someone who understands that will show it in a dozen small ways: the door held a beat longer, the car already warm, the walk taken at whatever pace it takes.

None of this means stepping back from your parent's life. It means spending your time on the part only you can do. Nobody else can be their daughter or their son. Someone else can absolutely be the one who handles a Tuesday morning in February, when there is ice on the walk and the entrance is on the far side of the lot.

I only take on a small number of families at a time, which is deliberate. It is the only way I can be the same familiar face each week rather than one of a rotating group. If you have been the one doing all the driving and have started to wonder how much longer that is workable, I would be glad to talk it through with you. You can reach me directly at 224-578-2301.