Helping caregivers doesn't mean reinventing the wheel.

We'll go take a few calls here. Let's go with Susan in Tennessee. And Susan, how are you feeling? I'm feeling pretty good.

Well, what's going on? Well, we, when my husband retired, we retired to Memphis, Tennessee. Our families, mine live in Chicago and his family lived in Milwaukee. My father passed away about three or four years ago at the age of 92 and he was the primary caregiver for my mom.

My mom is seven years younger, so now she's 89. And my siblings, I have two brothers, twins who are older, one sister who's younger, one brother never married, so he's been at home taking care of my mom and dad and not my mom. He works full-time. My other brother freelances as an architect and he's in and out of the house. My sister works full-time and she comes every day to my mom after work and we have a former brother-in-law who is her caregiver during the day.

It's very convoluted, but that's what it is. And I think there's a lot of resentment among one brother. The other one understands, my sister understands that I have my own family here in Memphis.

My daughter's and my husband, who I take care of, and then my husband takes care of us. And I want to support them, but it's very difficult long distance and there's resentment. And I understand that, but I don't know what to do. What do you think?

Well, I got a couple thoughts. This is not uncommon, by the way. We have the family unit no longer lives in the same town and everybody's spread out. We've had the family diaspora and one person usually ends up getting caught, taken care of. My brother, he never married and he's okay with that. He's really easy going, but the other one's very resentful. He's just, he's not a believer, which is I'm sure part of the problem. Well, maybe, maybe.

I know a lot of believers who get resentful too. Yeah, but my one brother that is not supportive of me, he's so good to my mom. He's so good to her, as my other siblings are. Well, instead of trying to help your mother, how about helping your brother?

How? Well, what does he need? Does he need groceries delivered to him or his pantry stock? Does he need somebody to do a lawn care service? Is his gutter okay? Are his gutters clean? Because a lot of times if a caregiver is stressed out, I guarantee you their home is stressed out.

No, no. My former brother-in-law is a good house boy. Well, it's not just the house. It's not just that. The maintenance and so forth wears on you and you do this long enough and it will show. There are lots of different ways. I mean, if you can make sure that they have, you can also help pay for someone to come in and give him a break once a week. You know, there's a service that you can use and come in maybe just four hours a week on, you know, Saturday nights or whatever.

Okay. There are lots of there are lots of different things you can use. You can hire a lawn care service.

You can hire, don't just send, don't say let me know if there's something I do. Think of a service that they use a lot or could use a lot. Is their car in pretty good shape? You know, how are the tires?

How are the tires on the car? You know, and you know, a gift certificate to a tire shop, you know, but don't send a check, send a service. Think about every part of a caregiver's life. Do they have a good CPA that handles their finances? If not, connect them with one and underwrite it.

Is there a, when's the last time he got, he went to his own doctor. Okay. And don't, you know, a lot of people say, oh, I'd love to be able to send so-and-so on a cruise. Well, I don't know about a lot of caregivers on that, but that for me as a caregiver, I wouldn't want somebody to send me on a cruise.

I don't want to be around that many people, that many needy people on a boat. But I do have certain needs that I have. See, most caregivers, we're pretty high functioning multitaskers and we're very capable people.

And so it's hard for people to know what help looks like to us. But if you start to break it down, we all drive cars, we all have homes that need things. We all have certain things that we have to have that require regular maintenance. I don't want people to cook for me for the most part. I mean, I always like a meal when somebody brings it, but you don't want to get in that situation where you're relying on it. But I sure would like not having to go to the grocery store all the time. That's true. Oh yeah. And now we have delivery service.

There are plenty of companies out there that will do that kind of stuff. And in a stocked pantry is a wonderful thing. And all of a sudden, if you're not trying to take care of your mother, but you're trying to take care of your brother, you're going to start speaking to a lot of that resentment. You know, that's a very good idea. Well, that's why I have a radio show.

Sometimes every now and then I'll just get one. Don't tell anybody. It'll ruin my image, but we do the best we can with what we got. But, you know, those are just little things. And also, you know, the resentment issue is a real thing. And don't let that sneak up on you and the family, because it will tear the family apart.

And I don't want to do that. Yeah. It's your father, right? It's not your mother. It's your father that he's taking care of.

No, no, no. My dad passed away. It's my mom. It's your mom.

Okay. Well, when your mom does pass away, because from what I understand, the mortality rate in this country is still at 100%. And when she does pass away, y'all don't want to be standing there at the grave at odds with each other with clenched fist.

It's true. So you may not be able to get to your mother right now, but you can get to your brother, and you can look for thoughtful ways to care for him. You know him better than your sister.

You're going to know him well, but look for thoughtful ways of what is heavy on his heart and address those things in a very kind, caring way. Don't make a big production about it. Just do it. You know, if somebody came up, next time you see his car, I don't know how often you see him, but next time you see his car, look at his tires.

Okay. And I don't know that if anybody ever bought me a new set of tires, I wouldn't even know what to say. That's an incredible gift. You know, and yeah, I mean, yeah, it's expensive, but at the same time, you know, it's thoughtful. It's saying, Hey, look, I want you safe on the road. And, um, and you're doing a great job and I don't know what else I can do, but I thought maybe I saw your tires last time and I thought, maybe you could use a good set of tires.

You know, who knows? I don't know your brother, but you know your brother, but look for ways that are meaningful to him. Okay. Yeah.

But don't, but, but again, don't make a production about it. Do it because you love him. Cause he, see, think about what he's doing for your mother.

Yeah. He's not doing this so that your mother will say every day, just gush over him. How wonderful he is. He's doing it because he loves his mother. That's true. And you do this because you love your brother.

Okay. And don't, don't, don't, don't, don't expect him to gush over it. Just love, just, just give and, and, and watch what happens. You, it's, it's a reflection of what's in you, not what you're getting from him. And he, he may still, he may still be a little bit of a curmudgeon about it.

Yeah. You know, that's okay. Love him into non-curmudgeoness, if that's a word, you know, that's how we do it as believers. You know, Jesus did that for us while we were enemies with God. You know, it's not like we were doing something that warranted what he did for us. He did it because he loved us first. That's true.

That's very true. And well, again, my sister said, uh, show them how a Christian acts and lives. And I didn't know how to do that from a long distance. Well, show, don't tell. Yes. You know, was it, Augustine said, preach the gospel always, and if necessary, use words, basically, or St. Francis of Assisi or somebody said that, somebody important said that, I don't know who said it, but somebody said it. And you know, that's what you do.

Preach the gospel to him, and if necessary, use words. All right. How's that sound, Susan?

I think those are wonderful recommendations. Well, thank you for listening and thank you for calling. And it just means a lot that you're out there and that you care about your brother. And, and, and now we're going, and, and, you know, there are other people that have the same thing. They don't know what to do.

And so in that absence of it, they just, they just kind of let it go. And I think this is a good thing that we can, bang these ideas around with each other and come up with ways that we can, we can model this. And he does do a lot of driving around. So I think the tire thing would be great.

And then the lawn service for the home. Yeah. Those are wonderful things. Those are wonderful things, you know, and they, and they just kind of, some people like to do their own lawn, lawn work. Okay.

That's good. It gets them out there. You know, some people just love to sit on a mower.

That's their way of decompressing. I get it. So that may not be the thing for them, but, you know, you know, and look around just and don't rush to do it. Think it through and do it with a, with a strategic plan and you watch and see what happens. Let me know how, let me know how it works. Listen, this is Hope for the Caregiver. This is Peter Rosenberg. We'll be right back.