Reversing Roles: Help Your Aging Parents Navigate Transitions with Becky Fields

Today on the podcast Becky Fields shares her extensive personal experience caring for aging parents and in-laws, emphasizing that proactive planning makes transitions significantly easier than waiting for a crisis. 

Becky is writing a workbook with practical checklists and a book called "Daughters of Naomi" addressing the emotional aspects of caregiving. She also runs a service buying homes from families who need to transition parents quickly. Her core message: maintain open communication, start planning early, build a support community, and trust God through the process. 

Main points discussed: 

1.  Early Planning is Critical 

2.  Warning Signs to Watch For 

3.  Communication Strategies 

4.  Emotional Considerations 

5.  Practical Resources 

Links:

Purchase Becky’s Book, Guiding Them Home, here

Connect with Becky:

https://grandmahousebuyer.com/

https://daughtersofnaomi.org/

Instagram: @grandmahousebuyer

YouTube: @grandmahousebuyer 

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See you January 6!

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Connect with Amy:
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Instagram: @GracedHealth
YouTube: @AmyConnell

Transcript

Reversing Roles: Help Your Aging Parents Navigate Transitions

Graced Health Podcast

Host: Amy Connell

Guest: Becky Fields

Amy Connell: I am so glad that we have Becky Fields on the podcast with us today to talk about helping our aging parents transition from independent to assisted living. Let me tell you really quickly about Becky. She uses her real estate experience to find solutions to difficult properties that may be well-loved, but not retail-ready. She's currently writing a book to help families in this situation, and she is here to help us and those of us who are in this season of helping our parents maybe make that next step and guide us and give us all of her wisdom. Becky, I'm so glad you're here.

Becky Fields: Thank you for having me today. I'm really excited about this interview.

Amy Connell: Yes, I'm glad you're here. And it's interesting because, Becky, I typically have health-focused conversations on this Graced Health podcast. I like to say that the show is for women who want to thrive in their physical, mental, and spiritual health. As a personal trainer, I really like digging into the physical aspect of it. When I got your text, I realized that this is a good conversation to have even though it may not be a clear path of relationship to those three areas, but it's something that this age group I know is going through because the age group of my women in this community are forties into sixties and sometimes seventies, and so they're walking through it. I have friends who are in their fifties, and they're starting to figure things out with their parents. And then I have friends who are maybe a decade beyond and they're helping their parents transition. So I know that this topic is applicable to my community, and I think you're the perfect person to bring it today. So I'm really glad that we're gonna be able to talk about this, Becky.

Becky Fields: All right. Yeah. I went through this back in my thirties, my late thirties, early forties. My parents moved in with us when I think I was about 36, and my mother had health issues and they lived with us for about a year. My mother had a heart attack and passed away in my home, and then my dad continued living with us for five more years until he passed away with cancer. So I dealt with a sudden death in my home and I dealt with a slow death in my home. Then several years later, in 1999, my mother-in-law came to live with us. And our aunt came to visit us for Christmas, got very ill. She had an autoimmune disease that was becoming very active in her body, and she ended up losing both of her legs and could not live by herself anymore. And so I had to go back to Austin. She never made it back to her home in Austin. I had to go back there, shut down her house, get rid of everything, move stuff, put the house on the market, and I took care of her for about two years until she passed away. So I had already dealt with this before this time, and now I'm 68 and I'm starting to see some changes in my body and I'm finding that I'm dealing more and more with people that are dealing with their parents that are aging. And if you—I don't know exact statistics, but I would be willing to bet that 90% of the people that are caring for their aging parents are women. And the men are usually busy working and it'll either be their wife or their sisters that are taking care of their parents. Rarely men, although I have run into a few men that did care for their parents as they aged. But you're faced with all sorts of decisions to make and how do you transition them? And the big thing is it's so much easier if you start early before they get to the point where they have to have the transition where they have a stroke and suddenly you've got to make decisions very quickly because you need to get them into assisted living or move them somewhere 'cause they can't live by themselves anymore. And you've got this big house and it's full of stuff. And I've found a lot of parents are hoarders. And it may be organized hoarders, and they may have so many collections and so many China sets, and your kids don't want your China anymore. They don't want your little trinkets that you've got. Everybody's minimalist now. All the younger people are minimalists and they don't want all that. So that's what bore the book that I'm writing, that I saw the need and everyone I talked to said, "Yeah, I wish I'd had one of those books to read." So that's it.

Amy Connell: Yeah. And it's interesting because it sounds like you went into transition more in an acute way where your parents moved in, you had a very sudden death with your mom. Your dad's was slower. Your—it sounds like your mother-in-law—like it was a bit more acute, but let's back up and talk about—you say it's a lot better if you can start early and before it gets to be a problem. So walk us through what typically prompts adult children to start having conversations with their parents about housing transitions and what are signs that families should be watching for? Because a lot of us have good relationships with our parents. We have strong parents. They raised us, and I know that this is not everybody's story, but it can be a delicate dance with our parents with—when we're talking about the people who raised us to be the women that we are, saying, "Mom, Dad, we need to make a change because..." And look, I will always be my kid's mom. I'm fast-forwarding 30 years-ish and thinking, I don't want them telling me what to do.

Becky Fields: Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Connell: So talk us through kind of those initial conversations and, particularly, what some signs people should be looking for.

Becky Fields: Well, things you can be looking for—well, it is one thing is downsizing. My kids, in my case, my kids have been after me for years. "Mom, y'all don't need to live in a 4,000-square-foot house anymore with stairs." And it's not that I—I mean, I could get up and down the stairs easily, but I did notice my knees were creaking a lot more. And at some point I would not be able to go up and down the stairs and our kids kept asking us, you know, "Why don't y'all downsize?" But then I thought, you know, I gotta get rid of stuff. I gotta get rid of stuff. And that's the big obstacle is that they've got this emotional attachment to their stuff. And I had to get rid of my mother's baby grand piano 'cause where we moved, I didn't have room for it. And you know, things that, the space for entertaining, you may not have that when you downsize, but that's one thing that is just seeing—do they need to get out of a house that is a two-story and to a one level? Do they need to reduce the amount of stuff they have and get into a smaller space? And that's something you can—you're just watching, watch how they're moving, watch—are they forgetting to take their medication? Are they forgetting things? Did they leave the stove on all night or something like that?

Amy Connell: Yeah.

Becky Fields: Things like that, that can endanger them. And then a lot of times, you know, there's little signs you can see for medical things that may be coming that they're ignoring, and make sure you encourage them to go to the doctor to get things checked out. 'Cause sometimes they, especially men, will put it off. Women are more apt to go to the doctor to get things checked out and they may be diabetic and if they're very much overweight, having trouble moving around. That can be a problem. There was one lady that I worked with that had a—her mother lived in Oklahoma and the daughter lived somewhere—another state, I've forgotten what it was. And she called me and she said she had not been in her mother's house for years. The parent—the mother—she and her mother were estranged and I guess they would talk on the phone periodically, but she had not been—when I got someone to go into that house, it was a two-story house. The bathroom was upstairs. The mother had a La-Z-Boy that she did everything in. She slept on that La-Z-Boy. You could not get up the stairs. There was rat droppings. There was cat—she had cats all in the house. There was a small path to a downstairs bathroom that only had a toilet. She didn't even have a shower. Had no clue that her mother was like this. So being on top of, being, visiting them. And I know a lot of kids—adult children—live out of town or another state, and they don't get in to see their parents and check on 'em. If you have a trusted neighbor or someone from their church or something that can check in on 'em every week and give you a report. But she was having to transition her mother very quickly into assisted living because she could no longer live by herself. She wasn't taking her medicine like she should and things like that. And that is a very difficult situation and a difficult conversation to have with a parent because it does feel like you're coming in and taking charge. Sometimes you have to, but—and how we ended up moving is—one of my oldest sons, my oldest son moved to a bigger house in this neighborhood and we bought his house, which is a one-story. It was a perfect transition. We could fix it up a little bit before we moved in. We live about a half a mile from him, his kids, my grandkids, can come over and visit. I've got another daughter in the neighborhood. I'm closer to some of my other kids that live in town. And it was a good transition for us and it was good for us to get rid of and release that emotional attachment to those things. And things that are valuable to you are not valuable to other people. But just looking for physical signs, looking for, you know, things like that.

Amy Connell: That's, yeah, that's good to know. And it is hard because we are more disjointed than previous generations, and so it can be hard to get in and get eyes on our parents. I feel very lucky that not only do my husband and I have good relationships with our parents, but that what you're talking about is not a problem. But I do have friends who have talked—their parents, and so I do know that is—that's an obstacle for people to come over. When we have this conversation about talking with our parents about, "Okay, Mom, okay Dad, maybe it's time to downsize. Maybe it's time to transition to either a smaller house or to assisted living or something like that," what kind of mistakes do you see adult children making when they first start bringing this up with their parents? And then I guess the other side of that would be, how do you avoid that? Nobody wants to make their parents mad.

Becky Fields: Right, it can be a difficult conversation. You can lead with questions—asking them questions, leading questions, you know, "Are you taking your medicine?" Or, "How's it going with the doctor?" And, "What difficulties are you seeing, Mom? What are you having difficulty doing?" And things like that. I listened to—this man called Jefferson Fisher. Have you ever heard of him?

Amy Connell: No.

Becky Fields: Okay. He has a podcast and I've heard him speak and he has a book called How to Have Conversations or something like that. He talks about how to have those difficult questions, how to avoid the conflicts, how to diffuse things when they come up. One thing he said was, "Take 'em for a walk." He said it's a lot easier to have a conversation when you're walking with them side by side than confronting them face to face. And if they start getting upset, reach out and touch their hand and say, "Mom, it's okay." And, you know, trying to touch them in some way. There's little tricks you can do to diffuse the anger that might build up or the denial. A lot of them are in denial and just reminding them by asking them questions. And, "How would you feel more safe? Would you be more comfortable in a smaller place where you don't have to—you know, it's a lot of work maintaining this big house and the stairs are hard for you to climb up. You can't even get upstairs anymore. How long has it been since you've even been upstairs?" And things like that. And, "For my peace of mind, it would make me feel so much better if I know that you're in a safe place." It may be taking steps, like getting them a monitor that they wear, so if they fall or something, they can click on it and get emergency care. They want to be as independent for as long as possible.

Amy Connell: I like the questions. Yes. I think those are—that's great. And I was laughing when you were talking about going on a walk. This is something I have talked about several times and I think I even wrote about it in one of my books about the power of going on a walk to work through difficult conversations. And—

Becky Fields: Yes.

Amy Connell: —these are things that we can do with our spouses, with our children, with our friends. So it's like—

Becky Fields: Yeah.

Amy Connell: —of course this makes sense that we can also do this with our aging parents is go—

Becky Fields: Mm-hmm.

Amy Connell: My community knows, I call 'em "walk and talks" like we can go on a—

Becky Fields: Right.

Amy Connell: —and talk about these hard things with their parents. So I love that. I love that you brought that up. This whole process can bring up a lot of emotions because we are dealing with the people who raised us, the people who we love, who have trinkets that are emotionally meaningful to them. There's so many different levels of emotions. How can you guide us, Becky, in navigating a lot of those emotions, the grief, the guilt, maybe resistance that can come up with taking these steps?

Becky Fields: I can speak from my own experience—

Amy Connell: Sure. I know as I say—

Becky Fields: —just going through it.

Amy Connell: —we're talking to a therapist—

Becky Fields: Yeah.

Amy Connell: —but look, let's be—like the joke among personal trainers is we're part personal trainer, part therapist.

Becky Fields: Mm-hmm.

Amy Connell: I'm not qualified as a therapist—

Becky Fields: Right.

Amy Connell: —but we get into people's lives that are complex and it's not just a—it's just not just a matter of "I gotta sell the house."

Becky Fields: Right.

Amy Connell: So I know you've walked through this in—

Becky Fields: Yes. Yes. And I've walked through it personally because a year ago, my kids were saying, "Mom, it's time for y'all to downsize. It's time for you to move." And I'm going, "No, this isn't the right time. I love my house. I love where I live. I'm not ready to move." Sometimes it takes them a while to process. It took me a while to process and when they first brought it up I said, "Oh, no way. I don't wanna do that." But the more we talked about, you know, we talked about it a little bit here, a little bit there. "What would it—you said you wanted to be closer to your grandkids." "Yes, I did say I wanted to be close." "This seems like—you said you wanted to be in a one-story house." "Yeah, I do wanna—maybe we could make this work." And then I thought, "Well, but I wanna totally remodel that house before we move in." And then we started to look at the money and I'm going, "We can't afford to totally remodel that house before we sell our house." So we went ahead and did the bare minimum just to get in. And then we figured out, you know, I'm a nuts-and-bolts, very logical person. I have to have a plan. I came up with my plan, "I'm gonna—we'll move into this other house and move our stuff and have a—we had a big garage sale at our old house indoors with air conditioning, everything we couldn't move. We put downstairs and we put up signs and had a huge estate sale, which draws a bigger crowd than a garage sale—

Amy Connell: Right.

Becky Fields: —and we sold off so much stuff. I just released it. I had to come to a point where I could release it, and that's where the parents have to come to a point. You can't force them to do it. They're gonna be very unhappy. They'll be fighting you. They have to come to that decision themselves that, "Yes, it is time to move," and give them something to look forward to. "You're gonna have—you're gonna be so close to your grandkids, you're gonna be"—or "You're gonna be in this, a home where—" a smaller apartment. And my friend's mother, once they got into that apartment, it's a two-bedroom apartment, she says, "I can clean this whole apartment in 10 minutes. It doesn't take any time." And she would, you know, she'd been fighting, cleaning her house and keeping it clean. And now she's got this manageable place and just taking things that you want to keep and it is hard to—you find out what's important and there's some things that are very important that are non-negotiable. "I gotta take this with me."

Amy Connell: Right.

Becky Fields: Or sometimes you think you've gotta take it with you. And then as it comes to be time to move, you realize, "I don't have room for this. I guess I'm gonna have to get rid of it." But it has to be their solution, not yours. If you force it on 'em, you are gonna have pushback.

Amy Connell: Of course. That makes sense. Also that was the case when they were parenting us as teenagers.

Becky Fields: Exactly. You're reversing roles. You become the parent. They become the—

Amy Connell: Yes, exactly. Yeah. And I have to imagine, again, I'm lucky in that I have not had to deal with this, but I know a lot of people have, and I can only imagine how overwhelming this must feel for the adult children who are helping their parents do that. Not only in like, "I gotta sell this house and I have to help my parents declutter and get rid of all the things and have the estate sales, not the garage sales." And like that is a lot. And then throw on that, "P.S., we're also oftentimes parents with children, our spouses, and we've got our careers." That's just a lot to do. So I'm wondering if you can provide some guidance on how to help—that sandwich—is it—is that a real thing, that sandwich generation? Also great book, by the way, if you've read it, it's called Sandwich by Catherine Newman.

Becky Fields: Okay.

Amy Connell: But yeah, just help us, guide us some in that feeling of overwhelm and maybe where to start first, resources you might recommend. I know you help—this is part of what—

Becky Fields: Yes.

Amy Connell: —you do, Becky, so—

Becky Fields: Yeah.

Amy Connell: —tell us about what you do, Becky, as a resource as well.

Becky Fields: Yeah. What I personally do is I buy those houses that can't be put on the—on MLS. The parents may have lived in the house 30, 40 years. It's never been updated. It may have green carpet or gold countertops, you know, the Formica countertops. It hasn't been updated, and they don't have a clue what to do. And most of the—and if the kids are living out of town, they don't have the time to remodel it and get it ready for—for market. So what I'll do is I come in and I will buy the houses. I work with investors and they buy the houses. And I help them find houses that need to be flipped, that need—and you can leave the house the way it is. You can leave everything in it. We rent a dumpster, we dump everything out. If we—I'm collecting resources. My father-in-law, when he passed away, he had, I think, 300 or 400 LP records that he had collected.

Amy Connell: What a gold mine—

Becky Fields: And—

Amy Connell: —for someone—

Becky Fields: —but—

Amy Connell: —that—

Becky Fields: —back then they were all Southern Gospel. Nobody wanted Southern Gospel. And back then LP records were not a thing. Now they are. I wish I had 'em now, but we had no clue what to do with them. But there are people that will buy them. There's people that—and all those little glass collectibles that you've got, many figurines. Some of them are worth something and some of them are, but you have to—they're only worth what you can find somebody to buy 'em for and how to sell 'em and all. But you can take what you want. I recommend people that I'm buying houses from, "Take out everything you want and then walk away. We'll buy it, we'll close on it and we get the dumpster, we get rid of everything. If there's something salvageable, we'll find someone to haul it off and resell it or donate it somewhere. You can donate a lot of stuff to Goodwill or Salvation Army or whatever you want to donate to. There's cars. Some people have cars that don't run that—I know a lady that her mother died and there's two cars sitting out on the driveway that don't run. There's Cars for Kids. They'll come and take it. Her big obstacle—she can't find the title. I think they'll even take it without the title. But anyway, you know, there's ways to get rid of the stuff that they leave. I will take the house. I mean, sometimes the roof needs repaired. Sometimes it needs, you know, so much to it and it can be overwhelming. That's what I do. But what I'm doing right now is I'm also compiling a workbook that gives the adult children a guide and the parents a guide for what things are important, what paperwork that I suggest getting a box, a file box. And if—once I get this workbook ready, put it in the front and start writing down who your banker is, who your—if you own properties, other properties. That's something, if something happened and the parent had a stroke and they need to take over their finances, they need to know the passwords to their computer. "How do I get to your bank? Who's your banker? Who do I talk to?" And power—"I need a power of attorney" and all this stuff. I'm compiling a workbook that will give people nuts and bolts of how to prepare for your parents in the future. They may be good right now, but while they're good, that's what I'm saying, it's so much easier to start early, move 'em on, downsize 'em while they're still healthy and they can enjoy a new place. We're not talking about nursing homes or assisted living or—that's later on. And in my book that I'm writing, I'm giving you options. You know, what options do you have? If they can't live by themselves anymore, you can move 'em in with you. A lot of people do that, and sometimes the parents can't afford assisted living. Sometimes they have to sell their house quickly to get money. They don't owe on the house. They need the equity, and that's where an investor might be a good option. "We can get you money quickly so you can get them into a nursing home or assisted living right away."

Amy Connell: Some of those transitional facilities require a pretty hefty down payment—

Becky Fields: Mm-hmm.

Amy Connell: —and they get real tricky with all of this stuff. But yeah—

Becky Fields: Yeah.

Amy Connell: —they want a pretty good chunk of change—

Becky Fields: Mm-hmm.

Amy Connell: —in order for you to even live there.

Becky Fields: And there's the government ones. You don't really want 'em in those.

Amy Connell: Yeah.

Becky Fields: My parents had no savings. My dad was a blue-collar worker. He had a very small 401(k). I mean, he thought he was great. He had several hundred thousand dollars. I'm going, "That's not gonna cut it." My mother's health was not good, but she improved when they moved in with us. I was able to prepare good meals for her and take care of them and they ate with the family. I think, personally, I do not regret one minute bringing my parents in my home and my mother-in-law in my home because I saw my kids—when my parents moved in with us, we had four kids at the time, only four. And—

Amy Connell: Because you have seven.

Becky Fields: I have seven. Yeah.

Amy Connell: Okay.

Becky Fields: But the four—and then after my mother died, my dad continued and my two younger boys were born while my dad lived with—and I just thought, you know, my dad just had such a good relationship with the kids and my son was his little gardener with him. And I can just gush over the honor it is to care for your parents as they're aging. Now, that's not an option for everybody. I also have a chapter in the book on other options of assisted living and senior homes and maybe independent living apartments and things like that, and about how much they cost. It just depends on their needs and what their physical needs are as to what decision you're going to make as to where your parents will move.

Amy Connell: That's a really positive approach. And I appreciate that because I think a lot of people will think, "Oh God, I don't want my parents moving in with me." But I like the perspective that you've given on that. So I really appreciate that side that you shared with your dad living. And I know that would not be everybody's—I know that would not be everybody's case. There are a lot of fractured and broken—

Becky Fields: Mm-hmm.

Amy Connell: —families out there. So before we wrap up, Becky, what would you want my community to know about this season of life, both for those who might be facing it soon—"Oh, I've got these parents who are getting older"—and then maybe for those who are in the thick of it? I see this often of just overwhelm and exhaustion of taking care of everybody. So leave us with a—I'm not leaving, we're not saying leaving, but just give us something that—this is really what I want you to know.

Becky Fields: It's communication. You need to keep the communication lines open and prayer and asking God for grace because it is overwhelming at times and sometimes I felt like giving up and that—I was there. I was there and it's not a matter of if, it's when. You know, everyone will deal with their parents aging unless you lost your parents when you were young. And I'm thankful I dealt with it when I was younger and had more energy than a lot of people. A lot of my friends are dealing with it now in their sixties, and their parents—they're blessed to have parents that are in their eighties and nineties. My parents didn't live that long. Now I'm at the age where my parents died. My mother died at 69 and I'm 68. And that's kind of a scary thing when you reach the age when your parents died. But I'm in much better health than she was because I've taken care of myself and she didn't. But I guess it's just the communication and keeping tabs on 'em and knowing—don't think everything's okay just because they're not calling you. 'Cause a lot of times they won't call you and tell you that something's bothering them. You need to be asking questions, learn how to communicate and come up with a plan before you have to. Work with them and say, "Mom, Dad, I want to be prepared. If something were to happen to you, if you were to die in a car accident or something like that, let's work—I've got this workbook. These are all the important things that we need to do. Can we start working on getting a box with all the important paperwork in it so I know what to do? If something were to happen, if both parents are alive, I wanna be able to take care of Mom if something happens to you," or the mom, "I wanna be able to take care of Dad if something happened to you," just put the focus on the other parent. They're helping you care for them. Things like that.

Amy Connell: It's funny as you're talking, it reminds me of a conversation I had with Dr. Sorayya Estes, who's an audiologist. And a lot of these same themes of helping them focus on the other person. 'Cause we talked a lot about how to help a loved one with hearing loss.

Becky Fields: Mm-hmm.

Amy Connell: And she was educating us about the communication is, "You're missing—you don't hear your grandchild when they are talking to you" or something like that, and so it's more of the emotional connection and how it's gonna impact other people. So it's interesting that I'm seeing kind of themes among what you were saying and then also what she was saying. Okay, so that's all good. Becky, you have mentioned two different things that I think might be interesting to our community. Number one is the workbook, and number two is the services that you provide with buying the homes and just taking that overwhelm away. Tell people how they can get the workbook when it comes out and also how they can work with you and where to connect with you.

Becky Fields: You can find me on the web. I'm grandmahousebuyer.com. I've got 17 grandchildren with another one due in December, and so I changed my persona to be the Grandma House Buyer. I'm a grandma that buys houses, so grandmahousebuyer. And then also, if you're interested in my book, you can find that at daughtersofnaomi.org. I am also in the process of collecting stories. If you've got a story of caring for an aging parent and how God worked through that story, I would love to talk to you and collect your story. I'm writing my book, Daughters of Naomi, that's separate from the workbook, but Daughters of Naomi is walking—it's written to women that are caring for aging parents and how the process—now, my other workbook will be nuts and bolts. It appeals more to the men because they wanna know exactly, "Just tell me what to do." But the Daughters of Naomi deals more with the emotions with women.

Amy Connell: All right. And Becky, I've got a few questions I ask all my guests. One is I love learning about people's tattoos because I have found that when someone decides to put something on their body for the rest of their life, they often have a meaning behind it. So I was wondering if you have a tattoo, if you wouldn't mind sharing what it is. And if you don't have one but had to get one, what would it be and where would it go?

Becky Fields: That is so funny. I just got back from—we went to Hawaii for our 45th, 46th—no, 45th anniversary. And my husband and I were sitting there eating ice cream. We were right in front of a tattoo shop and we were looking at all the tattoos.

Amy Connell: Oh, funny. Did you get one?

Becky Fields: I did not get one. No, I do not have a tattoo. I think my kids would freak out if they thought I had a tattoo, but I think if I were to get something, it would be like a little cross or something on my ankle or something like that. Not, you know—

Amy Connell: Nothing on—

Becky Fields: —nothing—not my whole arm. I'm aging and I've seen these women that have got tattoos as young people and all over their back and how wrinkled it is.

Amy Connell: It's different than it was. Yeah. That's been one of the reasons why I haven't gotten one.

Becky Fields: Yeah. Yeah. I'm just not—I don't like the needle. I've got my ears pierced, one piercing, and that's it. I don't like needles.

Amy Connell: No, I appreciate that.

Becky Fields: Yeah.

Amy Connell: Okay. We've talked about where people can connect with you and so I'll say it, but I'll also put it in the show notes. But they can go to grandmahousebuyer.com and then also daughtersofnaomi.org. Any other place for people to connect with you?

Becky Fields: I'm on Facebook. Grandma House Buyer is on Facebook and I'm in the process of starting a private group for Daughters of Naomi. I do have a Daughters of Naomi Facebook page, but I want a private group that's just for people, women that are actively caring for parents or have cared for parents or a loved one, and it's more like a support group. And I want to do a Facebook Live once a week. That may be after the first of the year before that gets going, but that's something—it would be invitation-only or, you know, somebody would recommend it. And that's not selling anything. All it is is just a place you can vent, because sometimes you need a place to vent. And I would recommend also—that was something I forgot to mention. Have a community. Have a community that you can talk to and other women that are going through something similar or have gone through that, that you can talk to.

Amy Connell: Yeah, that's a great final recommendation. So you get to have the last word as a guest on the show. What is the one simple thing that you would like us to remember about our conversation? It can be big or small, but just one simple thing to walk away with.

Becky Fields: I love to talk to people. If you wanna talk to me, contact me. You can email me or contact me through my website. Message me on my Facebook page. I've got lots of friends. Yeah, I would—I love to connect. I would love to get your story and, you know, I have an idea of another book—Stories from Naomi's Daughters. That's what it is, Stories from Naomi's Daughters. My book is based on the Book of Ruth—

Amy Connell: Okay.

Becky Fields: —in the Bible.

Amy Connell: Okay. And I forgot to ask, do you have a meaningful Bible verse that you'd like to share?

Becky Fields: My life verse is Proverbs 3:5 and 6, which is a lot of people's—God gave me this verse back in college and I have clung to it: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your path." I had it on my wall, framed on my wall, and you know, as you walk through life, even this season of life, you have to trust God every day that even though you don't understand what's going on and why it's happening, God has a plan and we just have to trust Him.

Amy Connell: Amen. That's so good. Okay, that is all for today. Go out there and have a graced day.

Becky Fields: Thank you.