The Years We Keep Saving for Don’t Always Come

My father started working at 13 at the U.S. Postal Service in Brooklyn, NY. The USPS helped pay for college, and then he spent more than 50 years in finance, working without complaining, ever, to support his family.

When he finally retired, all he wanted to do was travel the world with my mother.

Instead, I was getting divorced, and for three years, he traveled weekly between our cities to help care for his grandchildren—and me. At the same time, his sister, unmarried and living alone, was diagnosed with lung cancer. When he wasn’t with us, he was driving to her city to care for her. He showed up wherever he was needed.

After my aunt died and my divorce finally ended, my father was ready, at last, to rest. and travel with my mom.

Then we realized something terrible: my mother had dementia.

So my father became her caregiver. And when my mother died, my father’s dementia began.

It’s getting clearer and clearer to me. Now is the time to take that trip, visit with friends, start that new hobby, do the thing you always wanted to do, tell everyone you love them. We can’t take the future for granted. We don’t want to die someday with big regrets.

Victoria Echoes of Memory by Sally Cave Dad Lives with Me Sammie Marsalli Cindy Martindale