The Cookie Jar 3

In this episode of The Cookie Jar, Marla Jewell begins the real work of imagining what life after caregiving could look like. As she digs deeper into her aunt Judy’s notebooks, the abandoned Sacajawea Ridge center, and the stories of caregivers in her community, Marla learns the true cost — financial, emotional, and personal — of bringing respite back to Salmon, Idaho. With Daniel’s help and wisdom from those who lived it before, Marla starts sketching a sustainable plan that honors Judy’s legacy without repeating her burnout. A grounded, heartfelt look at what it truly takes to rebuild hope one small step at a time.

Transcript

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Hello friends, and welcome back to Take Care of Time, the Tells and Exhales of Caregivers. This is another episode in my holiday story series. Titled The Cookie Jar where we follow Marla Jewel, a former caregiver in Salmon Idaho as she learns what life looks like. After the casserole stop coming, the house gets quiet and the caregiving season has ended, but her story has not. In our earlier episodes, we watched Marla stumble her way through grief and attic full of memories and a cookie jar that turned out to be. A time capsule of love and lessons. Today we're stepping into the next chapter where ideas start to turn into plans, and the cost of helping other caregivers becomes very, very real. So if you're listening while folding clothes, driving to an appointment, or hiding in the bathroom for a few minutes of peace, this story is for you. Take a breath. This is your time too. Caregivers learn to count without even realizing it. We count pills, we count hours of sleep, miles to the doctor's office days until the next appointment. We count the years we gave, and the ones we feel like we lost. But there's another kind of counting that shows up when the caregiving ends, when the house is quiet. The phone stops ringing and someone hands you a key to a building that used to mean hope. Suddenly you're counting money, you're counting what ifs. You're Counting the cost of starting something new when you're still healing from what already was for Marla Jewel. The idea of reopening Sacaguwea Ridge, the old adult day and respite center just outside of salmon, Idaho, sounds beautiful, necessary, holy, even. But beautiful ideas come with invoices, and today the numbers start to talk. Marla sits at her kitchen table the morning after stepping inside Sacaguwea Ridge with Daniel Price. Her Aunt Judy's former caregiving partner's son. The cookie jars in the middle of the table to its left Judy's notebook. The caretaker's promise to its right, a stack of papers from the bank, the property deed, the taxes, the basic numbers. She takes a sip of her coffee that's already gone lukewarm. The high from yesterday's discovery has worn off. The romance of the idea has given away to a familiar feeling. Caregivers know too well. Reality. She leans over the property tax statement, delinquent balance,$2,413 and 72 cents. She says it out loud just to hear how it sounds. She flips the next page and estimate from the bank's last appraisal. Roof needs replacement within five years. Hvac. Older than recommended lifespan, interior cosmetic. Wear some water damage. Marla Exhales. Okay, aunt Judy. She whispers you left me a key but not a check. Later that morning, Marla sits across from Tom Keller, the bank manager at Leigh High Valley Savings and Trust. He's kind mid fifties with a calm demeanor of someone who's seen a lot of dreams cross his desk. He flips through the property folder. Sacaguwea Ridge, he says, I remember when this place opened. My mother used to go there twice a week for bingo and chair exercises. Your aunt did good work. Did Marla repeats. Picking up on the past tense, Tom gives her a sympathetic half smile. Running a center like that takes a lot more than good intentions. He swivels his monitor slightly so she can see. We've still got the mortgage record recorded as paid off. That's the good news. Judy and Elaine owned it free and clear when it closed, but. He clicks a few more times. The taxes are behind. Not horrible yet, but you'll need to bring those current and you're looking at, um, I ballpark at least$50,000 in improvements if you were to reopen it as a License day center, Marla chokes on the number 50,000 at least. Between code updates, safety checks, insurance, staffing, it adds up fast and that's before you hire your first employee. I, for caregivers, that number isn't just money. It's hours of work, it's shifts. It's if I do this, what do I have to let go of? Tom continues. Now there is one thing he says, we've got a small account linked to the property, hasn't been touched except for a few tiny deposits. Every now and then he pulls it up. Account name Sacaguwea Ridge Caregiver Fund Balance.$3,218 and 40 cents is nowhere near 50,000, but it isn't. Nothing. Marla leans closer who's been depositing into it. She asked. Tom Scrolls. Most of it's older. Your aunt and Elaine made the early deposits, but these here he points at the last year are anonymous cash deposits,$60 here, a hundred dollars there. Okay, last one was a month before your uncle passed Marla Frowns. So someone has been quietly feeding this account for years. Tom nods. It looks that way. Whoever it is. They either believe in that place or they can't quite let it go outside the bank, Marla finds Daniel leaning against his truck. Hands in his jacket pockets. He's gone for a walk. While she met with Tom. How bad is it? He asked. She relays the numbers. 50,000 50,000. He repeats slowly. Minimum. She says, and that's just to get the doors open. That doesn't include staff insurance, programming, transportation, any of it. Daniel nods thinking. Let me add my own reality check. He says, I still live in Boise. My job is there. I've got some flexibility, but I can't just pack up and move to Salmon next week to run a center full time. He pauses and honestly, after what I watch my mom go through and what your aunt went through, I'm not sure either of us should be trying to run anything alone. There it is. The thing caregiving teaches you if you're paying attention. Just because you survive doing everything doesn't mean you should repeat the pattern when you finally have a choice, they stand in silence for a moment, both weighing invisible spreadsheets in their heads, debt time, emotional energy, grief. Then Daniel says something that surprises even him. I can talk to my boss he offers, see if there's a world where I could work remotely a week or two a month, if this idea goes anywhere, I'd want to be more than just a guy who pops in on the weekend. Marla looks at him. You do that. He shrugs. My mom spent her last years here. Judy held her hand when I couldn't. If there's a way I can help other families without burning myself alive, I want to at least explore it. Later that week, Marla meets Mary Linley at a small cafe in town. She worked at Sacaguwea Ridge when it was open. A veteran aide who knows exactly what it took to keep the place running. Mary isn't a villain. She's something more complicated. A tired caregiver who saw the cracks up close. I always wondered if somebody would come sniffing around that old building. Mary says, staring her coffee. Your aunt cared about that place like it was a person. I don't think she ever forgave herself for closing it. Why did she Marla ask? Not the official reasons. The real ones. Mary's face softens officially funding cuts. Licensing requirements, staffing shortages It was all true. She leans in, but the unofficial reason, she was exhausted. We all were, the needs got higher, the help got smaller. And your aunt, she started filling in the gaps with herself. If you've ever been a caregiver, you know exactly what that means. Mary continues. She stayed late when we couldn't find evening coverage, she drove people home. When the transportation budget ran out, I caught her paying for supplies out of her own pocket. I told her it wasn't sustainable. She told me, well, we'll get through it. We'll just get through this year. She shakes her head. Every caregiver has a, we'll get through it year For some of us, it turns into five. Marla swallows. So there was no big scandal, no major incident. Mary pauses, we had incidents. She says, you can't have vulnerable adults in a building 10 hours a day and never have a fall or a scare. We had a minor state inspection ding us for not having enough staff on one shift. Judy took it hard. She felt like she'd failed everyone. She looks Marla in the eye. She closed Sacaguwea Ridge before it failed harder. She thought stepping away was a safer choice than holding it together with duct tape and guilt. Mary takes a sip of tea. I've been thinking of reopening it. If you're thinking of reopening it, you need to promise me one thing. What's that? Marla asks, promise me you won't martyr yourself the way she did. If you can't find funding, staffing, and the support, walk away. Don't try to out. Stubborn reality. No center is worth your health on Thursday night. Marla and Daniel attend a caregiver support group at a local church. They don't come in waving a banner about reopening anything. They come to listen. Around the circle. A woman caring for her husband with Parkinson's, a son whose father has advanced dementia, a grandmother raising a grandchild with medical needs. When is Marla's turn to speak? She clears her throat. I used to be a caregiver. She says, for my great aunt Judy and my Uncle Jim, they're both gone now. Several heads nod. They know that special ache. And recently I found out Judy used to run a place called Sacaguwea Ridge. An adult day and respite center. I've been to the building and it's been sitting empty for years. The room shifts. One woman's eyes widen. I used to bring my mother there. She says It's the only reason I survived those last two years. I could drop her off three days a week and for six hours I could breathe. Another man chimes in. My brother went there after his stroke. They helped him feel like a person, not just a patient. Then comes the flip side, a quiet voice from the corner. I worked there. A man says just part-time. I remember when Judy started talking about closing it. She cried in the staff room because she thought she was abandoning everyone, but she was barely standing up by them. We were losing volunteers and the. State wanted us to add more documentation, more training, more everything with the same tiny budget he looks at Marla. If you're thinking about bringing it back, I'm not going to tell you not to. God knows we need it, but you need a plan. Grants partners a board and a way to keep from doing what every caregiver does quietly doing the work of three people until their body gives out. The room hums with stories, not about buildings, but about relief, about what a few hours of safe, trustworthy, respite can do for someone hanging by a thread. By the end of the night, Marla isn't sure whether she's more overwhelmed or more inspired. Maybe both. Night creeks crunched the gravel. As Daniel walks Marla to her truck, they stand in the parking lot under a dim streetlight. So Daniel says, on a scale of one to running to Mexico, how impossible does this feel? Marla laughs softly, depends on the minute She looks out over the dark, quiet street. I learned something tonight. She says two things. Really? What's that? First, this town still needs what Sacaguwea Ridge tried to be. Caregivers are drowning and they don't need another inspirational quote. They need somewhere to take their people so they can breathe. Daniel nods, and second, she takes a breath. Second. I can't be Judy. I can't run this on fumes and favors and bake sales if we're going to do this. It has to be built differently, slower, with better boundaries, with help. That's the quiet revolution that happens when a caregiver starts to heal. They stop trying to recreate their old life and start asking what a kinder version might look like. Daniel leans against the truck. What if we don't start with reopening the center? He suggests what if we start with something smaller, a pilot program one day a week, partner with the hospital or a church, test the waters before we dive in. Marla tilts her head. You sound like you've been thinking about this. I have. He admits all the way from Boise every time I drive back. And my boss, well, I had that conversation and. I can't move, he says, honestly, not right now, but I can work remotely a few days at a time. Come up for a long weekend, maybe a week out of the month if we plan it right. I can handle the admin, the grant, writing some of the logistics from my laptop. He smiles a little shyly, assuming you still want me involved. Marla looks at him for a long moment. Aunt Judy trusted you with her mother. She says, and she left this for both of us to figure out. So yes, if we do this, we do it together. They stand in companionable silence, the kind that only exists when two people share a weight. Neither of them wants to carry alone. Marla Drives home and new kind of promises is forming not the desperate kind. Judy wrote about in the margins of her notebook, but a slower, wiser one. A promise to move forward without sacrificing a promise to build something. Only if she can build it sustainably and a promise to remember that she's not just a caregiver anymore. She's allowed to be a partner, a planner, maybe one day something more. If you've ever thought about turning your caregiver experience into something bigger, a support group, a nonprofit, a new program, you've probably felt what Marla is feeling right now. The pull, the need, the voice that says, if not me. Then who? But here's the lesson tucked into Marla's story today, you are allowed to count the costs. You are allowed to ask what, will it take? And do I actually have it to give? You are allowed to say yes slowly. And if your answer is no, if it's not time, not sustainable, not safe for your body or your mind, that's not failure. That's wisdom because the world doesn't just need more caregiving programs. It needs caregivers who survive long enough to enjoy their own lives too. Next time on the cookie jar, Marla and Daniel stop dreaming and start sketching. They meet with county officials, explore grants, and sit down with the hospital to ask a big question, can a little mountain town really sustain a caregiver respite program, or is it just a beautiful ideal on paper? Along the way, they uncover one more surprise tucked into Judy's plans, a blueprint she left behind for a different kind of respite, one that doesn't require a full center to begin. We'll get back to Marla and Sacaguwea Ridge, and their blueprint for their caregiver respite next week. But first, I wanna talk to you, the caregiver, listening to this with a tired brain and a full heart. This holiday season I've created something for you, just for you. The gingerbread holiday respite box, a one-time Christmas themed box from Take Care Time that wraps you in warmth, whimsy, and a little bit of gingerbread joy. Inside you'll find a gingerbread mug in cocoa to sip slowly, even. If the rest of your day isn't a cozy gingerbread mystery book to escape into for a few chapters at a time, gingerbread, lip balm, lotion, and soap. To turn basic self-care into a tiny spa moment, A custom gingerbread puzzle for quiet, mindful fun, a cute gingerbread pen. Soft gingerbread notebook to catch your thoughts, rants and dreams. Fuzzy gingerbread socks for tired. Caregiver feet. A gingerbread cookie cutter so you can bake a little joy into your kitchen a calming gingerbread. Pinch me for those. If one more person calls my name, moments you can send it to the caregiver in your life. Who never buys anything for themselves, or you can do what I strongly suggest and gift it to yourself. With zero guilt Quantities are limited, and once these Christmas boxes are gone, they're gone till next year. You can order your gingerbread holiday respite box@takecaretime.com, and if you're sending it as a gift, we'll tuck in a personalized message just from you. Because even at Christmas. Especially at Christmas. Caregivers deserve care too. Before I wrap up, I wanna hear your story. If you've been a caregiver or if you're a caregiver right now and you heard a little bit of yourself in Marla's journey, I would love to know what part of your caregiving surprised you the most? What do you wish people understood and what does respite look like for you, or what do you wish it looked like? You can share your story with me by contacting me at podcast@takecaretime.com. We would love to hear from you. Please note. That this episode features reenactments and dramatized details. While in most cases the exact verbatim dialogue may not be known, all dramatizations are grounded in thorough research and crafted to honor the stories shared to respect the privacy and confidentiality of the individuals involved names, and some identifying details have been changed. Until next week, take care.