Despite living a long and fulfilled life, I wasn’t ready to let her go. And like so many of the women executives I know today, I was overwhelmingly responsible for taking care of her in those final years. As difficult as it was at times to manage all the responsibilities that came with working, raising a foster child, and taking care of my mom, I feel a tremendous void now. As an adult, I realize that will fade with time, but right now the wound is fresh and raw.  So I thought I’d honor my mom by telling you part of her story, and finding a way to make it relevant to what some of you are dealing with in your own life when it comes to taking care of parents and children.

A 93-Year Old Maverick

My mom was one of those women who never saw herself as anything special; certainly not a pioneer or a trailblazer for her generation. She lived her life on her terms, in a way that most women of her time couldn’t comprehend, let alone actually do, and survived experiences that would have crippled many people.

She was born in 1917, and raised in an orphanage following her mother’s death at the age of two. Her father left shortly after, and she didn’t meet him “again” until she was 26 years old and a Sgt. in the Army.

She belonged to the Women’s Army Corp – WACs as they were known back then, and her father was a military man as well. He preferred his role as a Sgt. to his role as a father to my mom, her two brothers and one sister, and so they were separated and placed in different facilities to be raised by strangers. They never did regain what they’d lost in terms of bonding; of feeling connected or part of a family.

As a young adult my mom survived an abusive first marriage, and had to make the agonizing decision to leave her own son in the care of his paternal grandparents because she couldn’t support him on what she made working two jobs. A subjugated, abused wife who was beaten while pregnant and had her vocal chords snapped was the order of the day in her in-laws eyes, but they adored their grandchild.

She got divorced, and spent ten years as a single woman before getting remarried to a man 15 years younger than herself (my father). Among her pioneer adventures, I can add “robbing the cradle” to the list!

At an age when most parents are attending their kids’ high school graduations, my mom became a mother again. She was in her early 40s when my sister and I were born, and, in point of fact, she was 59 when I graduated from high school.

She was a military woman who traveled the world until they disbanded the WACs sometime around 1947. She spent time overseas, but had a passion for New York City and was a self-proclaimed “city girl” who hated bugs, believed even plastic flowers made her sneeze and whose idea of gardening was sending my sister and I out to pull the weeds.

By the time my mom passed away on May 14^th of this year, she was 93 years old. I spent the last 10 years caring for her – first in just small ways and in small increments of time; then for greater and greater time periods, until finally she required 24-hour a day care and I made the painful decision to place her in a nursing home near me.

What Kind of Condiments Do You Want With Your Sandwich?

Her death only 3 weeks ago made me think about the number of women executives in their midlife years who find themselves in similar situations. Women like me who are working full time, traveling for business, preparing children for college, or taking adult children back in to the fold, and trying to find time to care for their aging parent(s). Known as the “Sandwich Generation,” we are the meat between two slices of bread, and that “meat” (or “tomato” if you’re a vegetarian) is usually female.

Carry On

In the majority of cases the responsibility for caring for aging parents falls on women. Regardless of their professional responsibilities they are still expected to carry the load and carry the torch. Having lived this experience for many years, I know how difficult – sometimes impossible – it is to try to keep the flame lit without a strong network of support both at work and at home.

Keeping the Torch Lit

I was fortunate to be working for an organization that gave me the flexibility I needed to care for my mom and to the foster child we were raising at the time. Yet I also knew I wasn’t giving 100% to my job – despite many sleepless nights at the computer.

I was fortunate that my husband was hands on and was willing to share some of the responsibilities, although it was clear that it couldn’t interfere with his own work commitments. He did the most he could on nights and weekends, which left the day shift and everything else to me.

Not all women executives have such a supportive business culture, and not all supervisors understand there is a life beyond the office. In addition, many women execs are single, and without the extra pair of hands and shoulders to count on for help. Still others find “help” to be a dirty word and aren’t at all comfortable relying on others to do what they feel they should be able to do themselves.

Do, Delegate or Disregard

With so many women executives in the “boomer” generation – who have both children and parents requiring a piece of them – how do they navigate this challenge without being depleted in the process? How can women in this position learn to do, delegate or disregard? I would love to hear from those of you already in the midst of this, as well as those of you on the cusp. What are your greatest challenges? Your greatest fears? How has this experience affected both your personal and professional life? How do you (or do you) find time to take care of yourself?

I’d love for you to leave your comments here so we can learn from each other, garner support from each other, and perhaps, just perhaps, read something that might make the journey easier.

Tagged as: Career, Family, Life, Loss, Midlife, Women Executives, Work