They Once Held Us, Now We Hold Them: A Call For Empathy!

No one tells you how much it will hurt! How watching your once-strong parents grow weak will shatter something deep inside you. How their pain will become yours, etched into your soul, replaying in your mind long after the moment has passed. How you will wake up in the middle of the night, haunted by the suffering you couldn’t take away. What no one prepares you for is the heartbreak. The slow decline of the people who once carried you. Watching their hands shake as they struggle with a spoon. Feeling helpless as pain, illness, and time strip away their dignity. This is not just difficult—it is soul-crushing….

Caring for aging parents is love in its most exhausting, heartbreaking form. It is patience stretched thin, exhaustion masked by forced smiles, and silent tears cried behind closed doors. It is holding them up, even as you feel yourself falling apart. It is making impossible decisions, second-guessing yourself, and living with the fear and guilt that you’re not doing enough. It is staying up all night, watching their chest rise and fall, just to be sure they’re still breathing. It is lifting their fragile bodies when they no longer have the strength, while somehow trying to carry the emotional weight of it all.

Yet, while we are giving everything we have, the world around us is often quick to judge! People who don’t bear the weight have opinions on how we should do things differently. Relatives who only visit occasionally ask why we didn’t do more. Friends who have never lived this reality tell us to “stay positive” as if optimism alone could turn back time (though I know it is all said with the best intentions). The unsolicited advice, the guilt-tripping, the subtle accusations—it all stings in ways we can’t explain. Because the truth is, we are already drowning in our own guilt, questioning every decision, carrying the constant fear that we are not doing enough.

But let me tell you this: We are doing our best! And sometimes, our best is simply sitting beside them, holding their hands, and whispering, “I’m here,” even when we don’t have the answers.

If you have never been in our shoes, be kind. If you don’t know what to say, offer support instead of judgment. If you can’t help physically, then at least don’t make it harder with criticism. Because this road is lonely enough without the weight of blame added to it.

And if you are one of us—the ones carrying the burden of care—know that you are not alone. I see you. I feel your exhaustion, your heartbreak, your quiet moments of grief. I know you wake up with nightmares of the suffering you’ve witnessed, replaying moments that cut too deep (I still do, even after more than 3 years have passed!). I know the way your heart clenches when you hear their voice, wondering how much longer you’ll get to hear it.

This is love in its hardest, rawest form. It is brutal, and it is beautiful. And no matter what anyone says—you are enough.

Be kind to us. We are already breaking inside.

[P.S: This is written in memory of the time I was taking care of my dad during the last 10 months of his life……till date the toughest time of my life]