There’s an excellent post at Caring.com by Paula Spencer.

In Questions I Wish I Had Asked Mom, Spencer brings up a good point, I wish I had asked my mother more questions about her side of things when she was dying.

It’s hard toward the end, because you are tuned into taking care of “business” and attending to physical needs.

Other than the types of questions in the article, the thing I most wish I had asked my mother was, “How do you know?” the day she told us she “had to go”.

While I fully realize that was probably none of my business, she was lucid and would have realized that had never stopped me before.

I felt a little guilty about wanting to know that until my father admitted he wished he had asked it, too.

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My good buddy, Hoss, needs no introduction, you just need to go over there and read about his take on being what some perceive as “old”.

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As the workforce ages, so do their parents and workers who are absent from their jobs to care for their parents cost their employers a lot of money.

Some statistics say that it’s a wide spread issue:

According to Barbara McVicker, author of the new book Stuck in the Middleshared stories and tips for caregiving your elderly parents, 50-70 million Americans provide caregiver support to their elderly loved ones

And other stats from the Council on Aging in Silicon Valley include:

- 70% of those who are working TAKE TIME OFF to provide this care

- 15% of them QUIT THEIR JOBS when full-time care is needed for their elderly loved ones

- California businesses (and in all states) lose BILLIONS of dollars and lost productivity EACH YEAR due to their employees handling elder care of their loved ones

I don’t know that the answer is since both sides, employee and employer, each have responsibilities, but I do think we’re going to have to continue to find ways to support those workers with aging parents and caregiver duties because they will be away from work on more than a few occasions.

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Please keep Shai and her family in your prayers or whatever it is you do.

Her father had a stroke and things aren’t looking so good.

She has young children and live some distance away from her parents.

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The New York Times blog, Shifting Careers has an article about working after a death in the family.

When my mother died (nearly 2 years ago? Really?) I was away from work for nearly 2 weeks. I am blessed with friends and a wonderful workplace, so things were fine, yet I worried anyway.

But, when I returned to work, it took an enormous amount of time for me to get my mind back at work, too.

Actually, my mind was pretty much on leave during her illness, too, but you just kind of go into survival mode and muddle through.

I have no sage advice, I suspect it takes different amounts of time for different people to recover, but if it becomes disruptive to your job or life, it might be wise to seek help.

Otherwise, just give it time, it gets better.

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