E690 - Cindy Eastman - True Confessions of An Ambivalent Caregiver

EPISODE 690 - Cindy Eastman - True Confessions of An Ambivalent Caregiver, Grief, Loss and The Next Chapter

About the author
Cindy Eastman is a writer and an educator.

Her career has taken a wide and diverse route from introducing computer skills to elementary schoolchildren, teaching freshman English as an adjunct at a community college to facilitating a writing course for seniors for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. In her weekly essay on Substack called Silver Linings, she discusses getting older with a sense of humor--a must!

Eastman makes her home in Connecticut with her husband, Angelo. Her second collection of essays, "True Confessions of an Ambivalent Caregiver" will be published by She Writes Press in Sept. 2024 and she is submitting an anthology on grief to publishers. She can be found writing or teaching unless she gets to spend time with her grandkids. Then all bets are off.

Book: True Confessions of an Ambivalent Caregiver: A Memoir in Essays

Written for caregivers of parents and spouses, this funny but brutally honest collection of essays from award-winning author Eastman challenges the romanticized notion of caregiving, portraying it as an elegant conflict that reshapes family dynamics.

At first grateful to be able remodel the dining room of her family's modest home in Connecticut to accommodate her eighty-six-year-old father for what everyone felt would be a short duration of care, Cindy Eastman ultimately experienced a whole gamut of feelings over the course of what turned out to be four years of caring for her dying dad. Caregiving impacts everyone, and this account—told in essays recorded before, during, and after the time Eastman's father was with her—details that impact, not just on the primary caregiver but also the rest of the family.

One of the reasons Eastman committed to writing down her experiences was because she predicted that once her dad died, there would be a tendency to soften or even deny any of the negative and challenging times—and there were many. As of 2020, more than 53 million adults provide homecare in this country, and the reality of that arrangement is different for every family. It is not, as some might suggest, a "noble gesture" but rather an elegant conflict—an intricate reassembling of the family dynamic that many people don't ever see coming. In these candid, often poignant essays, Cindy Eastman brings all the emotions of taking on the challenging responsibility of caregiving a parent at the end of their life to the surface.

With lots of humorous insight, Cindy Eastman validates the struggles and sacrifices and describes what you want to say - even if you never utter a word. Eastman isn't afraid to reveal genuine thoughts and feelings about caregiving, even if these aren't always flattering.

True Confessions of an Ambivalent Caregiver shows that, sometimes, just getting through the day is an accomplishment, and it's enough.
~ Courtnee Turner Hoyle
for Readers' Favorite

https://cindyeastman.com/