Create The Best Me

Why Caring for Aging Parents Doesn't Have to Suck the Life Out of You

• Carmen Hecox • Episode 128

Share episode

Taking care of your aging parents can feel overwhelming, but why caring for aging parents doesn’t have to suck the life out of you is at the heart of this week’s Create the Best Me episode. I’m joined by Howard Miller, a bestselling author and seasoned caregiver who has navigated the path of balancing work, family, and the growing needs of elderly parents, all while finding moments of laughter and gratitude amidst the chaos.

In our conversation, Howard reveals how embracing levity transformed his own caregiving journey and why caring for aging parents doesn’t need to mean losing yourself to stress or burnout. You’ll hear about the real, relatable challenges of the “sandwich generation,” and learn how simple mindset shifts, clear communication with siblings, and prioritizing self-care can keep you grounded and even joyful while supporting your loved ones.

Whether you’re actively caring for aging parents or preparing for what’s ahead, this episode is packed with actionable wisdom and heartwarming stories to help you discover why caring for aging parents doesn’t have to suck the life out of you.

5 Key Lessons

  1. Levity Is a Power Tool: You don’t have to be a jokester to introduce lightness; shifting perspective and practicing gratitude can help prevent burnout.
  2. Self-Care Isn’t Optional: Maintaining your own health is essential. Regular exercise, healthy routines, and honest self-talk make you a better caregiver and a happier person.
  3. Start Family Dialogues Early: Navigating finances, living arrangements, and care options openly avoids conflict and creates a smoother caregiving experience.
  4. Sibling Teamwork Takes Intention: A division of duties, mutual respect, and a little humor make a huge difference in maintaining harmony and sanity.
  5. Find and Treasure Small Joys: Look for laughter in daily moments, honor and revisit favorite memories, and know that these will sustain you through difficult times.

Learn more:
Dive deeper into Howard Miller’s practical tips, find his book, and get extra support for caring for aging parents without losing yourself in the resources listed below.  

📕 Resources: 

https://createthebestme.com/ep128

https://www.fulcrumpointpartners.com/bestme

Purchase “Burdens & Blessings” https://a.co/d/1Y0UDK5  

#AgingParents #Caregiving #WhyCaringForAgingParentsDoesntHaveToSuckTheLifeOutOfYou #FamilyCaregivers #SelfCare #SandwichGeneration #Levity #GriefSupport #CreateTheBestMe #HowardMiller

📨 Newsletter:

https://createthebestme.com/newsletter/

👀 Connect With Me:

Website: https://createthebestme.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/createthebestme

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carmenhecox/

TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@carmenhecox
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@createthebestme

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/carmen-hecox

📽️ Video Request:

https://forms.office.com/r/LvLV1AsBfv

Picture your 98-year-old dad on a tele-health call. The cardiologist cheerfully reports," Your pacemaker battery looks good for another seven years!" Dad leans in and deadpans, " Great what's the plan after that?" Park that zinger in your back pocket; we'll tie a ribbon on it before the credits roll. Today I'm chatting with Howard Miller, bestselling author of Burdens and

Blessing:

A Lighter Hearted Approach For Middle-aged Folks Dealing With Aging Parents and the man who wrangled over 350 word docs of doctor notes, pill schedules, and in case of emergency plans while caring for his aging parents, yet somehow kept everyone laughing. If you are balancing Zoom meetings, teen drama, and a dad who insists he doesn't fall, he stumbles, stick around. Howard's dropping a simple lighthearted question that melts stress in 30 seconds. A sibling peace move that saved his family's sanity. Why finding one tiny laugh each day can turn caregiving from burnout to blessing. And yes, we'll revisit the pacemaker punchline to reveal the bigger lesson hidden inside it. Howard Miller, welcome to Create The Best Me. This is an honor and a privilege to have you on the show. Pleasure's mine. Thank you. I'm excited to be here, Carmen. Howard, before we get into today's conversation, which is a conversation that I am passionate about because I feel like, it's something we all need to talk about and we don't talk about. Can you please tell the listeners and viewers a little bit about who Howard Miller is? Sure. Thank you Carmen. Well, hello everybody, I'm Howard Miller, as Carmen said, and I'm originally from New York. I live in the Bay Area, just down the road from Carmen. I have been on my own as a business person since, 2000 or something. I started as a business life coach. My passions being in front of people. I've taught management, leadership skills. I then opened up a bookkeeping business, which you'd be surprised the connection cause you really need communications for that. And so I was doing management training and bookkeeping for quite a while. And then I'd say the last 10 years or so, my life changed a bit. I was still doing that, but caring for my parents with my brother. And we of course had help, but that kind of changed a lot of my focus. So I then wrote a book, which I'm sure we'll talk about here and about my experience with that and, had a lot of levity in there, and that's the subject here. Combining that with my other skills, and that's what I'm looking at right now. So that's a little bit about me. Great. So, Howard, what inspired you to write this amazing book called Burden and Blessings? Burdens and Blessings, and the subtitle is A Lighter Hearted Approach For Middle Aged Folks Dealing With Aging Parents. So Carmen, the reason I wrote it. The first reason I wrote it was it was one of the ways for me to help process my grief, it was cathartic. So I was very lucky, my parents were not sick. They didn't have cancer, they just got older. Dad lived to 99 with his mental sta, he was intact. Mom lived to 92. And I just got to see them get old. And my life, I'm pretty independent, but I had a lot of responsibilities and I knew it was, I took like over 350 word documents associated with them on doctors and assisted living places that they never went to and medications and my thoughts in there too, cause obviously there was a lot of stress. So I wrote it for me initially. What I realized is what I went through other people can touch on and it could help others. So I really felt complete after writing it. When my brother read it and said our parents would be proud, I was like, okay, that's the only review I need. But then I thought it could help others. Also, if I could have levity, cause remember the subtitle is a lighter hearted approach. If I could have levity and there's humor in the book, if I could have levity on losing my parents not, you know, haha, they went. But just about the experience where can anyone else have levity? How will that help them create their best selves? And where can you do that at work? And if companies, you know, where does that help, the bottom line? So it incorporates everything that I've done. So there's a lot of different inspirations on why I wrote it and why I'm continuing to promote it. And it is a much needed book for all of us. Because anybody who is in that sandwich generation, midlife generation, we might end up having to take care of our parents and juggle, our jobs and our own personal lives, our own personal health. Tell me, how does someone find balance? So I would, I'd say more and more people have to. Well, okay. And I was about to say, have to, and I actually, I was told so many times, you're a good son and I didn't like that. I was a dutiful son. Because I did what I knew needed to be done. It's the right thing. And first, you don't even realize you're out of balance for a while, right. It's not like boom, it changes overnight. It just starts slowly where you're becoming more the parent, more the supervisor or managing. Again, I was lucky in that they had each other for a while and we had help come in, but it's like monitoring the help. It's, it can be very challenging to keep a balance. And the thing I'd like to comment on that is have you had balance before? Because some people never were in any kind of balance. They work too much. So you start the habits before you have these kind of issues. And the way I look at it is if I didn't go to the gym, or if I didn't stretch or do something for me, I'm not as useful to them. And part of it is accepting that some of my downtime just wasn't gonna be downtime, right? Because I had this responsibility, which I knew would end eventually, right? I didn't know when. And I wasn't like hoping it would end. You know, but I wish I had one answer for you, but it is just, some part of it is acceptance and starting those habits sooner than later. Because a lot of times we're unhealthy. We're unhealthy because like you said, maybe we're not going to the gym before this happens. Maybe we're not eating right before this happens. Maybe we are, workhorses to where we're all work, work, work, work, work and no play. And so we are out of balance. Right, and then when this happens, you have to add this to the seesaw, whatever you wanna call it, and you're really, out, out of balance, this is stressful. I have a friend, a tennis buddy, and his dad was around the same age as my dad, but he was estranged from his dad. And I said, so when your dad passes, will you have any regrets? And he said, no, not really. And Carmen, I was slightly jealous of that. Because in some ways he didn't have to take on. I'm kind of teasing, I wasn't jealous. I'm glad I had a close relationship, very close relationship with both my parents, but he didn't have to take on the burdens, right? Remember burdens and, blessings. And so there's a lot of stress with the burdens. They come hand in hand with the blessings. When you look at all of that reflection, there's a balance there, but while you're going through it, sometimes there isn't. But then you do have moments where there is, if you try. So tell me how important is, cause you talk about levity. How important is incorporating levity in order to be able to see the blessing? So one thing, first, defining levity, it's not necessarily having to be funny. Some people aren't funny. Some people, I grew up in a house of humor. There was a book in the house called Laughter is the Best Medicine. So we always had humor. We always went to humor, which I think is one of the best gifts I've ever had. Not everyone has that and that's fine levity is just getting lighter about something. And that could be as, straightforward as changing your perspective. So if you're looking at something and you change it differently, and part of that is the way that we talk to each other. What's fascinating, Carmen, is when I teach management and leaders skills one of them, is how to ask questions. And I realize that helps with levity because what's the most common word when we ask someone a question, we begin with the word why a lot. But you shouldn't begin with why, cause why puts people on the defensive. So if you begin with what, or how, those are much better. And even when you're doing self-talk, try to use that in a situation, it might help for the moments. I knew I was very grateful. You try to ask yourself, what are you grateful for today? Come up with something. But there will be times when you're not. I fortunately have a good relationship with my brother. But you take this situation, add on top of it during the pandemic. I think it was about a month we didn't talk. I mean, I have a chapter in the book, I joke, we cursed at each other more than in a Quentin Tarantino movie. We cursed more than an episode of Succession. It was because we both cared and we both came about it it a little bit differently. So that was hard. But here's levity on that one; they were staying with my parents because no one knew what was going on in the pandemic, right. He thought having them in his house, that would keep them safe, but he was working full time. Wasn't gonna work and I needed to go from San Francisco to LA. Anyway, I finally get him back to their house and my mother said to my father, I heard them, I was in the other room. She said to him, I don't think the boys, they called us the boys, I don't think the boys are talking to each other. And he said, I might as well be dead. And I walked outta the room and said, don't you dare die, he'll blame me for that too. There is levity right there. And so, Howard, let me add in here. Your brother lives on the East Coast, doesn't he? No, he lives in, okay, so we all grew up in New York. My parents moved to Florida. My brother is in LA, I'm here. But they also more and more came out to LA, so they had an apartment in LA near him. So he had that added, even though I went down there one to three times a month, he was there. So it's hard to ignore, it's harder to separate it. I could separate it a little, even though I was on the phone all the time, so he was in LA near them. Okay, so I mean, so you were traveling; were you traveling back and forth from San Francisco to LA to be there for them? Yes, and to Florida, we would take them to Florida cause they still wanted to go there. But, when the pandemic, hit I spent May of 2020 in LA. Which was interesting to see that the world operate during a pandemic. And let me tell you, there was no traffic in LA, which was really nice. But yeah, because they were there, my brother needed the help. And we had stopped the caregivers and we had to get them back. But there was that month where I was traveling. Then after that, of course, I went down one to three times a month. At least wasn't cross country. Exactly. Yeah. And your parents were both just getting old, is that what that was? None of them had any type of cognitive issue. My mother did. So, my father broke his hip at 94. And 90% of people in their nineties die within a year. He lasted five years. He was sharp. My mom, my mom was an athlete. She's in the basketball Hall of Fame for Brooklyn College. She played tennis, and she played until about 80. So it was hard for, she had sciatica and stenosis and then macular degeneration, and the shots didn't work. And she had dementia I think it got to, it was progressing, but she always knew who we were, she just repeated herself a lot. And then there was a few things that would come up. No, no kind of strokes or, or any types of cancer. We were very blessed that way. My father got a pacemaker, and I was down there somehow he actually, send the results to the doctor via your phone, he figured out how to do that at age 98. And I was on a call with him to the doctor, I think it was a Zoom type of call. And he asked how long, he's 98. He asked the doctor, how long will the battery last? And she looked, she goes about seven more years. And he said, and what do we do after that? You know, Howard some people find caregiving overwhelming? Yes. How does one find levity in caring for people or caring for their loved ones? Are they full time or are they not? I mean, you don't have to answer. I'm just do they wanna be doing this or are they stuck doing this? Even if they're stuck, if they accepted that they're doing this; how do they make the most of it? And this reflects to how have they done that in other aspects of their life? I think the worst of us can come up in these situations and also the best of us can come up. And there'll be things I wish I had done. Patience is not a virtue that we have on our family as well, and I wish there were times where, I could be a bit more patient. So everyone, it's gonna be different. How well do you get along with them and your siblings? So levity with that is really where, can you be grateful that day? Where can you feel accepting those can be forms of levity? Again, it may not be outright humor, although, humor can help. And not necessarily you having the humor. But my mother couldn't see, but we, my brother, we'd go over, she would crack up at any Don Rickles comedy routine. Didn't matter what she was, she'd just listen and she would start cracking up. So that wasn't necessarily levity for us, it was levity for her, right. And, the last time I took her to the doctor, it was a couple of months before she passed, and she didn't really wanna live anymore; we came outta the doctor and she said, I think I'm depressed. And by the way, have to mention she had terrible stomach issues as well with everything else. She said, I think I'm depressed. And I said, ma, of course, it would make sense that you're depressed. Look at all the shit that's happened to you since dad died. And she just looked at me with sincerity and said, if I could just shit. I cracked up like you're laughing. She had been so sincere about what she said, but the fact that I cracked up jumped to her and she started laughing. So that's some of the ways, that when I took things really seriously and got on top of them, it got tense. When you kept it lighter, it was a little bit lighter. I wanna give credit, and I can't remember his name, the guy who wrote the book Being Mortal. There's a book it's in the library but it's a history of, home care, nursing homes and different assisted livings. But also he mentions in the book that as people get older, sometimes the only thing they have left are their decisions. So they'll make their decisions whether it's good for them or not. And the reason I bring that up is because I fought them, after my dad broke his hip and when it was June, they decided going back to Florida in November. Um, how? Right. And I tried, I tried logic, I pleaded, my brother did it as well. And then when I read that, I thought, okay, what am I arguing for? How is that helping me? There's no levity for me on that, right? And so there's this tension. So the next day I said to my mother, okay, what day do you want to go, I'm going with you. Make sure you get settled in. And of course she's like, what, what's the trick here? And I was like, there was no trick. So all those kind of ways, and it's in the moment. I don't think could plan it, Carmen. I don't think that could happen. So, tell me, how was it Howard, that you and maybe your brother, were able to address aging, health and living a comfortable life for the remaining of their life? How were you able to talk to your parents about that? What's interesting is I remember slightly before that I was hanging out with them and they look at me and go, how does it feel, like, how does it feel hanging out with old people? And of course, in reflection, they weren't old. Even though my father was in his late eighties, it wasn't old then. You don't say those things when you're really old, cause they stopped saying this. Part of it is, are they in pain, right? You don't want people to be in pain. And what is their comfort level at that point? It got to, when both of them were alive, I would call up and go, what'd you do this morning? And sometimes the answer was, I got up and had breakfast. And I learned, okay, that they're serious and, that's fine. I don't know if, I think I'd feel guilty if that's all I did, I feel like it's like, oh my God, I have so much more to do. In some ways, it's kind of pleasant that they're fulfilled by just doing that. So their sense of comfort and what they'll do, it is gonna depend. Like they wanted to have their meals, and so there's someone who came in who made their meals that was bigger for them. Just the ability to their world was where they were living, and if they had to go to the doctors. And then they did a lot, walking when they, lived in a place where they could go outside and walk. They took care of that sometimes, and we just made sure they were doing those things. And I would say that we never got into where we felt they were doing harm, although my father refused to use a walker or a cane even though, he fell a lot. This is before he broke his hip. And I was with him, with the doctor, and he told the doctor, I don't fall, I stumble. Like there was a difference. In his mind, there was a difference. He confessed to me he should use something, but he doesn't, then a few weeks later, he broke his hip. So your question was, how do I, you keep them comfortable? Well, when that was happening, that's when it started, right? I had to find, who's gonna come and help with dad when he gets back? What kind of help is there? And in his case, I don't know how he did this. I went there and he was out of it one day because they call it narco, right? But that was Vicodin back when I had to use it. And thought, we can't have his mind is everything. So I said to them, you can't give him this stuff. And the next day when my mother and I went to see him, we said, how are you? He goes, well, better than yesterday. So I went, whew. But he had to have been in a lot of pain because we didn't give him that pain pill. He didn't remember the pain after a while. But it was like, you have to measure what, what's most important. And obviously he was in severe. Well, with my mother at the end we said, give her the morphine. She was on hospice, but she hadn't used morphine, but she had broken her hip. Ironically, my father, not the athlete, lives five years after breaking his hip, my mother, die within 48 hours of breaking her hip, which was a blessing. But, there's, so there's different ways to help with their care and keeping them. Yeah, and that's the reason why I ask that, is because like you said, a lot of people don't wanna, they don't call themselves old anymore. And, and some of them might be reluctant to use tools that we need in order to ambulate, you know, a walker, a cane, or a bench to sit down. Yeah, or hearing aids or a bench to sit down while you're in the kitchen, you know, maybe prepping your meals and stuff. I think that our parents have a hard time accepting that these tools are there to make life easier. And so that's why I was wondering how did you and your brother, encourage your parents to use these tools without offending them? Well, I'm not sure how successful were with that. And I'm wondering what I'll do. What will you do? I actually went to get a hearing test and it was fine. When my father broke his hip, he accepted a lot of help after that. But you don't wanna have to break your hip to do that. But that's, what happened in his case. I think for them, what's interesting, I grew up to be independent, they were very independent. My mother was an only child. Her parents were in the deaf community. They were deaf and hard of hearing, so she grew up very much that way. My father had two older sisters who doted on 'em. My father was very stubborn. And I just sometimes didn't have patience. And he refused to come back from Florida when the pandemic started. He said, the cases are worse in California than in Florida. And I said, yeah, but that's gonna change. And I stopped pleading with him. My brother didn't. And then it was a friend dying, not of COVID, but of something else that got him to think, Hmm, maybe I should be near my sons. So I think it was something like that. They both stopped driving on their own at different times because their eyesights were going so that scared them. So in our case, they got scared of certain things and they stopped doing it. My mother after my father passed, she wanted to call 9 1 1 sometimes, like she said, well, she asked me can I call 9 1 1 cause I need an enema. And no, that's what you have the caregiver, they're in the other room. Or they will be there, soon. So we just gave those suggestions and I think as they got older, my mother didn't cook at the end. She had the meals there. They had the laundry. We were lucky that we could have people in the house. That's a whole other topic, Carmen, the financial aspects of all of this. And if we had to go on for a long time with 24 hour care, I don't know what would've happened. But we only had 24 hour care for a few months. Were your parents living in an assisted living facility or were they at home with somebody coming during the day? They were at home. And at the end there was 24 hour help. And then interesting, thing that I didn't know pass on is, I mentioned it in the book. My brother said I didn't know that dementia qualifies you for hospice. I had no idea because my mother, wasn't that far along with it. But she got hospice and she only lasted a few months on it. I thought she'd be the longest person ever on hospice, cause I didn't see her going that fast. So they came in at different times. But that's separate than you having people come in and helping do whatever they need to do, to help clean and, cook and, if they need help in the bathroom and things like that. So they came to them. My father would've been willing to go to an assisted living place. My mother would rather die. So she did. She saw it differently and quite honestly, as she got where she couldn't see, those places are huge and so they were intimidating for her. We took her to a few, but she didn't, it would've been very tough to get her out of that place where she in the apartment. Yeah, and so it sounds like your mom was in palliative care and then slowly migrated over to what most people call hospice, where they just keep them comfortable on their way out. No, that's my point, she wasn't on her way out. When she got the hospice; you know, it is a big agency, which there's pros and cons. They didn't even go to evaluate her. We said she had dementia and she was already in the system. I wasn't there, but my brother went and he said it was just a formality. And she got, medical devices and things for free. You could get, a social worker could come by. Actually, she got a massage, some of them were for free. And a nurse that comes by with some medications. All those things were for free. But they encouraged her, just live your life. And she did for a while. She'd go, walking still and all that. So it wasn't anything like that, she wasn't in quote, dying mode until 48 hours before she passed. So that's why about hospice, it was very interesting to me. I didn't know, cause I thought it means you're on your way out. And then I learned that there are people in hospice who've been there for years and years. So, here's an interesting question that I'm asking, I don't know the answer if you have five to 10 years left, how do you create the best version of yourself during that time? When you're limited to from what you had? I would say living every day like it was your last one, or to the best day that you could possibly make it. And there's simpler things that could possibly do that. I knew something was wrong when she wouldn't go for walks. Cause I never had an issue with her falling. Well, she fell at the end, but I never had an issue with her falling. And I would tell her, mah, you're strong. Cause she was. So I think a lot of it, yeah, living your best day comes from how did you do that before? How do you do that in your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties? And then, getting back to where levity comes into play and how do you talk to yourself? Because I don't know, Carmen, what do you think, are there a lot of, I don't know how many people think of, or naturally have this sense of a lighthearted outlook or use humor. I'm not sure what percentage. I never looked that up. I don't know, but I can tell you I think that percentage is very small. So then to ask how to use levity, they wouldn't know, cause if they associate it with humor. So I really think it comes down to self-talk. It comes down to questions. And okay, so part, this is over 10 years ago, more than that, I worked part-time, do you know Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker? Yeah, I was a part-time coach for his business. And, he has a lot of tools he ripped from other people. But I used, he had something that I used, it's there were morning power questions that you ask yourself. And some of the questions were, what am I happy about right now? What am I grateful for right now? What am I enjoying right now? And I used these questions when I was in transition with my business and I didn't know what was going on with business. But when I would get up and I'd say, what am I happy about right now? I'd say to myself, I haven't the foggiest idea. So we changed the question, I'd say, What could I be happy about right now? I said, well, I could be happy that I'm meeting so-and-so later. And I don't know why Carmen, but I would get happy. So there's different ways to talk to yourself and then of course, talk to them by them, meaning the people you're, taken care of. Or see what they want. I had to respect my mother when, two months after the doctor's appointment, I had gone away and she called me and she was crying. She was in pain and she said, I don't wanna live anymore. And I just listened. I'm not gonna try to change that. There was nothing more I could say there. And that was her, she was ready, she was ready. So she didn't last that much longer. So where's the levity in that? Well, I have one in the midst of that time, she had the TCM channel, she couldn't see but Jeopardy, where she was a contestant in the 1960s. And, TCM, she watched the old movies. She couldn't see it, but she could hear it. We had a DVR, we recorded WhatsApp Doc. I don't know if you remember that movie, it's still very funny. I watched it with her and we were both laughing for almost 90 minutes. This has within those last couple of months. And she woke up happy saying a good movie is a good movie. So, you're not gonna always have that right. But try to do something that they'll enjoy and maybe you'll enjoy it because they're enjoying it. And I commend you for allowing your mom to just say what was on her mind, say what was in her heart, even though those things were very painful to you. Because nobody wants to have their parents say, you know, I wish I could die right now. Well, what was interesting about that is there's a lot of times I didn't listen to all she said, cause she came from a different place. My mother, my brother, said after my father passed, no wonder Dad didn't want hearing aids. And my mother I say this with love, but she was, I remember one Thanksgiving; and again, what I said earlier, it's a gradual shift. I was down there the week of Thanksgiving and it was a little cold in LA and she was trying to take a nap. So I put an extra blanket over her and she said, thank you. And then she sighed and went, who's gonna fold it? But that's what I was used to, right? That's what I was used to. After a long drive, I came in and she said, Howard those shorts or hideous. And I said, I thought you can't see. And she said, Howard, you don't have to see it; see how hideous is those shorts? And, that's what I, that was my mom, right. And so that one I could push back on when it was something that was this raw and real, yeah. And I think all the things that happened, nothing could prepare you for that moment. But I remember where I was sitting when I got that call. So that was not characteristic of her to do that. Do you think that your parents instilled levity into yours and your brother's life growing up? Because you said that there was always laughter. Because it was preparing you for these days, the day you lost your dad, the day you lost your mom. Well, it's. A first answer is 100%. That's how we grew up. But it is interesting you say that if I had known, cause I saw my mom die. My brother was on the East Coast and I wasn't expecting that. Well, how would I go about life? You know, I knew that, or if she knew that, but I realized that's not what life's about anyway, that's just, it was a profound moment. But they instilled levity, because there was laughter and I know not every house has laughter. But people do get laughter from, books or television or movies. And you have that perspective, the ability to laugh; is very powerful, or the ability to at least smile. So I wish I had like a PowerPoint, you do these three steps. I do say changing how you speak to yourself will help, but it's not easy. Carmen, it takes a second to change, it can take years to get there. Very true. So yeah, a hundred percent that the humor. This was from a friend, a friend's brother put together, I dunno if you've heard of this, there's a game that people do, it's a death game. Death pole, you think of, what's famous, people are gonna die in the next year. You have to put your results in by midnight of the year prior; and you're looking at me. And, it's based on 120, I think, or 125; so the younger they are, the more points you get and everyone puts in 10 bucks. It's a morbid, morbid game. I loved it because you're, making fun of something that's gonna have the last laugh, right. You know, it's something, and it was interesting, people expressed horror to me, but then when someone died, they would text me or whatever; did you pick that person? But my father was like, oh boy, he just couldn't believe I was doing that. And I said, dad, don't worry, you can't be on the list. One, you're not famous and, I won't get enough points with you anyway. And I think they didn't have that, but that's my humor, my coping mechanisms, right. And, it came from them. But then they thought that one was too perverse or not, it came from them. And you know, Howard, when I first heard about your book and heard about you, I wanted to have you on the show because I experienced something difficult in my life. And, here I am, I'm reading about you. And I'm like, wow, he is smiling and he's seeing the blessing. And unfortunately, my mother remarried and the man that she married ended up getting esophageal cancer. And so I took him to Hollywood to go have his esophagus removed, have the cancer removed. Once they said everything was gone, we did our happy dance. Six months later, we found out the dance is over. Hmm. And so I cared for him. I helped care for him, between myself and my brother until he gave his last breath here at UC Davis. In fact, I became so desperate, I brought them from the Central Valley up here to my home in Sacramento, took him to UC Davis to see if maybe we could get him in some type of experimental program to save his life, cause he was only, either 52 or 54 years old. And I was actually in the room when he gave his last breath, I prayed over him like 10, 12 hours before. And I said, please God, take this broken body. Take your son with you. Give him the body that you promised he would have. And I remember my stepfather gave me the most evilest look because I think he felt like I gave up on the fight, but it was because realization kicked in. And I saw that here he, he was like 110 pounds. He was a man, but he was 110 pounds. He wasn't eating, he was eating through a, they had like a tube that they would feed him through. And so it was horrible. And I remember when he gave his last breath, it just, it took me years and years to stop crying. When I talk about it. Now I'm surprised that I'm not crying because every time I talk about it, I always cry. And so when I heard about you, I'm like, oh my goodness, here's Howard, these were his biological parents. And he had humor. He took care of them, and he's smiling. Yeah, I mean, I grieve, I still can't believe they're gone, right. And there's moments I had a tennis match, where I won and I was like, I would've told my mom about it. And I forgot for a second. And, when I saw her go, I don't know, I'm very grateful I got to see that, but it was a hard, it was a hard moment. I wasn't necessarily expecting it. I was very naive. She was breathing heavy, whatever it was. So yes I'm smiling. I go back to smiling and yes, I got it from them. Because I do think, and it's still, it's been two years. What year? Yeah, two years, something like that. A little over two years. But I still feel it. I could feel that; I move on, it's a testament to them. What would they want, you know? And it doesn't matter that they were biological. I think how cool it is that you felt that way about your, who was, he was your dad, whether it was a stepfather, he was your dad. Someone I know who was sort of surprised how hard it hit me because they were much older. That's kind of, I was like, huh. But then, someone else said to me, you know, my parents died younger, I imagine it might be, harder when they're older, cause you had them around so much. And there's no right or wrong with that. You know, my brother said I felt like I was kicked out of the nest, even though we've been out of the nest for, you know, a long time. So yeah, I'm smiling, but, that's part of my healing. Yeah, and my biological father passed away in 2019 and there are days Howard, I still forget that he's gone. You know, some things happen in my life and I'm like, I wanna call Dad. And I'm like, what are thinking, Dad's gone. He is been gone since 2019. Yeah, well, I'm glad you're saying that cause I don't think it ever, it never goes away. It shouldn't go away. These are people who have meant a lot to us. I mean, they're, our parents. And they've had impact on us, and we're lucky that we had positive influences from them. And, so I feel grateful for that, and that makes me smile as well. It's not like I'm always an optimistic person. There's Myers-Briggs, which does personality, but I'm more about the DISC behavioral assessment, cause you could use that in corporate America. And so I'm a, I don't know if you know it, but I'm a DI which is dominant, influential. And one of the conflicts about that is you could see the glass half empty and half full at the exact same second. But that, is where the levity comes in. My mom died at one in the morning, I hadn't slept in two days, so that was the third day I didn't sleep. And that day, all family was on the East Coast, but I had to bring like something to the funeral place, which I was familiar with, cause I had just been there less than a year and a half. And I was really tired about six o'clock at night and I was hungry, sort of, and there was this, mushroom barley soup that my mother, always love from someplace. And I just had it and I just went, ma, you're right. This is really good. But yeah, I was in shock, you have to be. I think that you're grieving. That's huge. I would be concerned if I didn't grieve, or keep grieving. But there's no reason you can't smile. Howard, what are practical ways that people can begin to practice levity? Those people that are taking care of their parents right now or maybe see themselves that, in a year or so, I might have to help my parents start making healthy decisions about their future. Well, for one thing, are the parents making those decisions right now? I do have a friend right now who asked me about that. And I said, well, one of the things is you wanna look at their finances and how are they doing it. And where's the money? Is it in? Because if they have too much money, then they can't get certain Benefits. benefits. And so who can they give the money to? Those kind of conversations you might wanna have. You might wanna talk with siblings, and that can be challenging where the conflict. Or you have an agreement like, if you live somewhere else and one of the siblings lives near them, they have, I would say the final say, my brother would laugh cause I don't think I always gave it to em. But because they're right there. They're right there in that moment. So that would be a form of levity to talk about those. Sometimes parents do they want assisted living. Or do they; they're the ones who won't give up driving, and then you're gonna have to, that's, that could be hard with the levity issue because I don't know where the lightness on that one could come in. I know my mother constantly saw my father after he passed, and I think a lot of that was just grief and part of that was dementia. But one of the ways I had levity with that, I said, how did he look? And she would laugh. So it is just one of the things you said, it's keeping conversation open and seeing what services can be used. Doing that and not hiding it from them either. Saying wait you're not there, I'm just looking at services or what, what have you looked at? I have a friend who's going through that with his mom and stepfather and, they're living too big of a house and they haven't left yet, but they're having some conversations about that. And, sometimes for many of the decisions we make is right in that moment because they hadn't been made before. And I think that's what does happen. But any freethought you can do might help make it lighter. That's the word I'll use, make it lighter. It's still heavy, but make it lighter, Here's another question, like you had mentioned that sometimes if one sibling lives closer to the parents, it can create, maybe they have more responsibility or maybe they feel like I have too much responsibility, you need to help me. How do, how do you keep peace between the siblings, like you and your brother? Fortunately it was just the two of you guys. Cause you were in San Francisco and he's in, Southern California or LA Well, as I said, we were fighting for quite, there was, I mean, and we didn't even know for the month that we were fighting that, my mother was aware of it and the caregivers were because they couldn't you know, communicate. So, no, there was a lot of tension there. So how do you keep peace? You know, at that time my brother said to me when he'd call me, how come I'm hesitant when I pick up the phone? I go, cause I think you're gonna gimme bad news, right. And he said, fair enough. So you might have issues that pop up because you don't agree. So you try to separate some responsibilities. And we did, well, but I overstepped if he'll listen to this. His point was if something was wrong with one of the home care aides who came, he's gonna have to react, cause I'm up here, he has to go there. Now though, I was in charge of the agency, so it's kind of like, was I working for my brother, there was that kind of conflict there. Then of course, if someone's, job or other responsibilities is busier, how do you deal with that? And I know someone right now, and she has a lot of siblings, but she's the one who's primarily taking care of her mom, but she wants to. Sometimes she gets resentful, but then she has to remind herself, this is what I wanted to do. And how does one do that? How do you snap out of it and say, this is what I wanted to do? Because it is overwhelming. Well, she could just ask me and I'll remind her. But, um, it's, uh, it's, it's actually, I'm, just being funny right here, but it's talking it out loud that she'll realize this is what she wanted, this is what she chose. And see how they've contributed. There's still gonna be resentment. One of the things, the biggest compliment I got is in my book, my brother read it, he goes, I know I didn't take for granted what you did, even though I thought you should do it, but I didn't know how much you did. I thought, well, my work for me is, as far as that was, I'm very glad he said that. And that wasn't my intent of writing the book. We all have our own worlds we live in and when we're stressed, how do you snap out of it? So, Carmen, we could change the question, it doesn't have to be about caregiving. If you're too involved with anything, how do you step out of that? But it does add, particularly when you're dealing with family. And if you have a lot of siblings, and you don't get along, that could be. Howard, what did you use to help keep you balanced? What tools did you use to help you get refreshed? Because I know, snapping out, laughing, all that stuff to find levity, can work to a certain extent. Yes. But what did use? I, worked out. So my dad died, it was late Saturday night, quarter to midnight on the last day of the month, if he had waited 20 minutes, we would've gotten the pension for one more month. But they said his body was not doing well. So I had gotten there late. On Monday morning, I went, got up early and went to the gym. I was like crying on the treadmill. But I think when I reflect, so interesting, thank you for that question, Carmen, because I don't know what got me, but when I was in my twenties, I decided I always need to stay in shape. So that really, if I had to pick one thing that would be one thing where I continue to do that in some aspect Hmm. Yeah. If you could give advice to your younger self, when you began your journey, Mm-hmm. advice would you give? Well, actually I can, I'm gonna have a two point answer for that one because my advice now is different. But I always say if my older self give it young, it would be three pieces of advice. And it's only nine words. One of them is stretch, one of them is buy real estate and the other is stay outta the sun. I mean that you can go, but you have to put sunscreen on that, it's maybe less words. But a few weeks before my father passed at age 99, my brother, call we spoke to our parents a lot, but he would talk to my father about work. A stressful job, he is a lawyer and he was talking for a while, and my brother finished, my father said to him, Andy, it'll work out and if it doesn't work out, it worked out. And my brother didn't tell me that till after he passed which was like just a few weeks later. We both said, well, he didn't necessarily live his life that way, but this is what he gave us. And that's the quote in the front of my book. And I think about that every day when you're going through stuff and other people have adapted that too. Someone I know is selling her business now. She goes, it'll work out if it doesn't work out, it worked out. That's my advice, now it'll work out and if it doesn't work out, it worked out. Howard, from the conversation that we had today, what is it that you would want those sandwich generation or midlifers that are actively in the trenches right now? They're walking this journey. They're taking care of their parents or parent, or a loved one. Yeah. What do you want them to hold close to their heart, and remember from this conversation? Well, their journey of doing this is gonna end. And how do they wanna be while they're in the journey? Because it could go on for a while. There're gonna be ups and downs, but how do you wanna be in the moments and how do you wanna help them? So that's what I them to remember. Cause it will end. And, when you look back, yes, you might have some regrets, but what are the good stuff? If you allow it, there's good stuff through the journey as well. There certainly is Howard where can people learn more about you and purchase your book. Thank you. Yeah, well I have a website and it's Fulcrum Point Partners.com. And there's you go slash and go Best Me and, it'll come up with, link to your podcast as well, and you could purchase the book from there. And also look at if whoever's listening here and they want some more about leadership and management tools that relate to levity. I'm thrilled, Carmen, because the fact that I could talk about my parents and also make a difference in work world as well with the skills that I have used, what an opportunity that is, there could be there so that that's how they could learn about me. Yeah. Howard, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for sharing your heavy story, but with such a bright, beautiful outcome. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. Yeah, thank you very My pleasure. So what do you do after the battery runs out? According to Howard's dad, and now maybe according to us, you laugh, you love and you trust that, it'll all work out, and if it doesn't work out, it worked out. Want more of Howard's stories and strategies swing by createthebestme.com/ep128 for his book, his speaking schedule, and dive deeper into using levity as your secret power. And don't wander too far, another fresh episode, drops next week, crafted just for you. Until then, keep dreaming big. Take care of yourself. And remember, you are beautiful, strong, and capable of creating the best version of yourself. Thank you for watching. Catch you next week. Bye for now.