The Caregivers - 9781451674149

A gifted writer’s chronicle of the extraordinary bravery and strength of a group of people who care for loved ones during long, final illnesses.

More and more people spend their late years ill and frail, dependent on family and friends for day-to-day help, and more than 43 million Americans care for family members over age fifty.

In 2010 journalist Nell Lake began sitting in on weekly meetings of a local hospital’s caregivers’ support group. Soon members invited her into their lives. For two years, she brought compassion, insight, and an eye for detail to understanding Penny, a fifty-year-old botanist caring for her aging mother; Daniel, a survivor of Nazi Germany who tends his ailing wife; William, whose wife suffers from Alzheimer’s—and others with whom all caregivers will identify.

Witnessing acts of devotion and frustration, lessons in patience and letting go, Lake illuminates the intimate exchanges of care giving and receiving. Her work considers important and timely social issues with humanity, warmth, and tenderness: How can we care for the aging, ill, and dying with skill and compassion, even as the costs and labors of care increase? Lake understands that such policy questions are experienced personally, in the daily, tough but ultimately rewarding lives of caregivers across the nation.

A humane, life-affirming portrait of what it means to give and receive love, The Caregivers is an important chronicle of a widely shared experience and a public concern.