Help Aging Parents Stay Independent Without Waiting for a Crisis

What if the biggest mistakes we make in caring for our aging loved ones happen long before a crisis begins

In this deeply human conversation, we sit down with Heather Harvey, a true local legend whose presence alone shifts the energy in every room she enters. But beyond her warmth is something even more impactful, a mission to transform how families navigate aging, independence, and care.

With nearly two decades of experience as an occupational therapist in home health and years in hospice care, Heather has seen firsthand where the system falls short and where families struggle the most.

This episode reveals the silent gaps between aging parents and their adult children. From long distance caregiving to emotional disconnection, Heather shares the real challenges families face before they even realize there is a problem.

Heather’s passion is clear, helping families stay connected, informed, and proactive so their loved ones can remain safe at home where they want to be.

This conversation is honest, eye opening, and real. Most families do not have a plan until they are forced into one.

If you have aging parents or want to better understand how to support loved ones as they age, this episode will give you insight you can actually use.

Aging gracefully is not about reacting when something goes wrong
It is about preparing before it does

Listen now and start the conversations that matter most.

Heather Harvey, can be contacted
at 480-415-7777.
Website: https://www.celebrationsacrossthemiles.com

These are the local legends shaping our communities.
Real stories, real talk, and powerful conversations.
Local Legends with Jess — where Arizona’s stories connect.

Transcript

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Welcome to Local Legends with Jess, the Arizona Edition. I'm Jessica Benevento, your mortgage matchmaker, opening doors with ease and bringing you the stories behind Arizona's most inspiring people. From best-selling authors and elite athletes to business badasses making moves across the valley. These are the local legends shaping our communities. Get the inside scoop, real talk, and powerful conversations you won't hear anywhere else. Local Legends with Jess, where Arizona's stories connect. All right, welcome to Local Legends here with me, Jess. And I have a very special guest with me today, Miss Heather Harvey. Yeah, I'm so happy you're here. Thank you for saying yes to coming on here. Thank you for having me. You are a local legend. I'll tell you why you're a local legend. Okay. We'll get into what you do, but on Wednesdays, I travel probably about an hour. It takes me to get to that networking group, Dinosaur Mountain. And when you are there, the energy is completely shifted. Like you are just this bright light of just great energy. And I just want to thank you. So that's like when you text me there that you weren't coming, I'm like, shit. You just you bring so much to that. So I just want you to know I there's no way I'm the only one feeling that. I think everyone feels that. So when you're not there, it's different. Um, and secondly, you're a local legend here because of what you do. Um, I don't know many people that care and are deeply as passionate as you are about helping people. Like I I consider myself a helper because I love people and I love helping on the mortgage side. I love being on a podcast and bringing people like you have this special type of like love for people and just the passion you have is is cool and you should be celebrated. So that's why Aaron, you're on here. So I want you to just tell my audience and you know, everyone listening, just what you do, like what you're set out to do, what your goal in life is to do right now in your current position. Oof. Sorry, put you on the spot. I knew you did. My goal is uh to bridge between the loved one and um the the senior and their family, whether their family is here or whether their family is back in New York. Okay. Um, acting like a bridge and helping to facilitate optimal independence and safety in the home. Nobody wants to leave their home. Right. Um, and as an occupational therapist that worked in home health for almost two decades, I saw that there was these areas that needed to be patched. Um, and you're not really allowed the time to do a thorough job because you have boxes to check off and you have parameters and metrics to fill for the government, for your employer. And I was always that person that took more than the time that was needed to actually do a thorough job. Um, that's not really looked favorable upon in corporate America. Yeah, yeah. They're probably like, hurry frig up, you have another client. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. And so I decided through all of these years, and then my recent stint in hospice for nearly three years that I want to go and patch that hole, fill those holes, help bring families back together again. I'm Generation X. So as soon as I could get out of my house, I was out. Right. Gone. Right. Like my mom and dad are like, don't you? No, I'm out. No, I'm out. Done. Yeah. Um, and now my parents are aging. They're in Florida because New Yorkers go to Florida. They do not like Arizona. They think it's ugly. Um I'm like, but you could go to Sun Lakes. It's exactly. There's still water here. No, it's not the same. Nope. Um, so there's this disconnect, and I'm seeing it with my friends starting to call. Like, what am I supposed to do? I've I haven't been home in 20 years, or I don't even know what's going on with my parents. And um, it can be something as basic as my mom's breath smells like my great aunts used to. Right. Yeah. And I'm just like, oh, it's time for oral care and to have that conversation. And truly, I think it's because we are not communicating. Um, Gen X is fiercely independent. Yep. Their boomer parents are saying, you know what? I'm a little embarrassed about how maybe I acted when you were growing up, or how maybe I wasn't there. Totally. Um, and so instead of the communication, there's just that drift and that ambiguity, and then something happens. And so then you're in crisis mode and there's emotion and all of this taking place, right? That's not the time for the communication. That's not the time to make those decisions. Those decisions needed to have been made a lot earlier. Yeah. So in my paradigm of home health, I realized that prevention is where it's at. Yeah. And it's not going to be for everybody. And um, I'm a blunt person, New Yorker. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm going to tell you how it is. I'm also going to help protect your autonomy and your independence and work with you. So I, there's, what do they call it? Like your standards of practice. I'm trying to think of the words. I can't think of the words right now, but evidence-based practice. Okay. Huge in the medical community. So we've been doing evidence-based practice. Use your walker. Okay. I've been doing that for 30 years. And guess what? Grandma won't use her walker. And she falls and breaks her hip. And then everyone's life is up here, like just completely unearthed. Right. And then family is trying to figure out how am I going to get from New York to Arizona? And I've got to get a flight. And I have to do FMLA and who's going to take my kids to football practice. All of this is going on. Then they're on a flight and then they're here. And then they're trying to navigate mom's home health because she's home now, with the dog biting the physical therapist and the phone ringing off the hook while she has a Zoom call for her corporate job. Right. That is what's going to happen. And it's the silver tsunami that's coming. Yeah. So I'm just trying to figure out a way to get that information out there to people that you need to get with your parent. You need to have a plan. Yep. You need to talk to your parent more often. And it should be a video call. And unfortunately, even with the video call, you're not going to see the entire environment. Right. You're not going to see the piles of papers, the pan on the stove that's burned. Yeah. None of that. Yeah. So I'm hopeful with this new job venture that I will be able to help put out some people's fires. So now what's your company called? Celebrations across the miles. Okay. And then there's an adage after that I can't think of right now. Okay. Because in the midst- So brand new. So you can't no one could be upset that you don't remember this. You literally just launched this. I did. And then last night, my husband, who has been in police academy at 50 years old, um, he's been struggling. Yeah. So he comes home and he's like, I don't know, man. And I'm like, no, not both of us. We can't, right? Someone has to be stable here. So I get up, 3:30 in the morning, he's sound asleep. I get down chat GPT, Gemini. Oh, thank God. Going back and forth. And then I'm getting mad at them. Yeah. You told me this and you told me that. And then I just had to throw it down and figure it out for myself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Special thank you to Justin Lis from State Farm. Justin is our sponsor here at Local Legends with Jess and Jay. His mission is simple. He treats customers like family, provides real solutions, ensures every client feels confident, supported, and genuinely cared for. That level of intention and service is exactly why he's considered one of our favorite local legends here in Arizona. We're grateful for the support and proud to highlight Justin and his team for truly making a difference in our community. So how do we get your site at like how do people contact you? Who is your ideal client? How do they get in contact? Like, you know, how do they get in touch with you? My ideal client is truthfully somebody who's proactive and preventative. Okay. So I personally am proactive and preventative. So someone like me, yeah. Somebody who's going to go for hormone therapy, even though standard medicine says no, no, no. Somebody that's going to have a genetic blood test to find out they have a clotting disorder. And if they had taken oral estrogen, it could have given me a stroke. Right. So people that have an honest investment in their future and they have good communication with their family, even if it's not so good, I am not a family counselor, but I usually can kind of slide in and say, hold on a minute. So that's what your services are. So someone that, like if I had both my parents back in New Jersey and I really didn't know what was going on, I would hire you to fill that gap and ask me all the right questions to find out how and get things set up in place. Yeah. Because the the I mean, we obviously know the reality of everyone's gonna die at some point. And our parents are typically supposed to die before us, and we need to figure out and have a plan in place before we are reactionary to something happening. Right. That's what you're doing. So proactive, we need to get on it. Proactive, preventative. Yeah. Because if you go into a home, I think it's like a cursive, it's like a double-edged sword. So I can walk into a house, any house, and look around, and I kind of have an idea of where we're at with pathology. Right. It's kind of a curse. We're not allowed to diagnose somebody, but you look at somebody and you see the characteristics of Parkinson's, but perhaps that's not diagnosed. So then I would go in and try to um preemptively um prevent anything from happening. Okay. But it's really um personally based. So if you're not gonna use your walker, tell me. And we'll put grab bars all around so you can hold on to the bars and go through your house. Right. I have a friend that I went to college with who um he's a he's a boomer, actually. Yeah. And uh he's out in New Mexico. And went before I moved out here in the 23 years ago, I went out to visit him and we were brand new therapists. And he actually modified a man's trailer with Parkinson's with rope that he could hold onto the rope and go all the way down. And I never forgot that. He MacGyvered that place so that man could die in his own, in his own home on his terms. Happy. That's it. That's what I want to do. That's who you are. Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on here. You're amazing. I know that was quick, but that's what get it out there. Okay. Shout out, who are you? Tell my audience how to contact you. Look at the camera. Do it. Heather Harvey, tell them how to contact you. You can contact me at 480-415-7777. Um, I also have a website, celebrations across the miles. And really, we're what we're celebrating is actually preserving the family autonomy and independence of the senior. I love it. Thank you. I love it. And I'll put that in the show notes so they could contact you. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. And that's a wrap. Ah, take care.