"It slips in through unanswered emails from an aging parent, through half-slept nights spent wondering how we will ever afford live-in care, or whether that one fall they had was the beginning of the end. It's not grief exactly. It's the shadow of grief that lingers before the loss, that creeps in through ordinary moments and whispers that everything is slowly, quietly, but undeniably changing."
"My mother has Parkinson's. She lives alone in the UK while I live abroad-untethered by design, a traveling healer by choice-except now that freedom feels like it comes at a cost I never calculated. She has started falling. Backwards. Her voice is nearly gone. I can barely understand her over the phone anymore, and every time she forgets a detail or struggles to find a word, my stomach knots."
An adult daughter balances caregiving from abroad for a mother with Parkinson's, facing falls, memory loss, and diminishing speech. Distance, visa restrictions, and an irregular healing-business income limit the daughter's ability to provide full-time care. Anticipatory grief settles as practical concerns—affording live-in care, assessing safety after falls, and fearing worsening dementia—interweave with hope and heartbreak. The daughter experiences panic and silent burden while making brief visits and doing what she can. Emotional tension arises from weighing mourning losses already present against making space for remaining time and moments with the parent.
Read at Tiny Buddha
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