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Falling in Love in the
Second Half of Life - Part 5 Caring for the One You
Love is the Gift of a Lifetime
One of the biggest fears that has dominated my
life for many years is that I would be a burden on
my loved ones when I got too old to take care of
myself. When I was young I imagined myself going
out in a blaze of glory, dying young fighting the
good fight for family, God, and country. I imagined
my surviving family would cherish my memory and my
family wouldn’t have to worry about taking
care of an old man.
I have been sharing my experiences giving care
to my wife, Carlin, since her unexpected slip on a
sidewalk and subsequent fall leading to partial
hip-replacement surgery. In
Part 1 I described the initial stages of the
partial hip-replacement surgery and the small
stroke that occurred during surgery that caused
some memory and speech problems. In
Part 2, I talked about the intimacy and
exhaustion that comes with 24/7 home health care.
Being a Caregiver was a new role for me and in
Part 3, I
described the deepening of our love that has occurs
once I wholeheartedly embraced the calling.
In Part 4 I
described what I learned about getting out of my
fix-it mentality and learning to listen more
deeply. Here I want to talk about the great gifts
we receive when we embrace caregiving.
When my own parents got older, I realized that I
didn’t want to lose them and did my best to do
some caretaking as they continued to age. But both
my parents grew up with an even stronger desire not
to be a burden, remained independent for much of
their lives, and died following a relative short
period where they needed caretaking. It wasn’t
until Carlin’s mother got cancer and we
brought her to live with us during the last months
of her life that I found out about the beauty of
being with a loved one until the very end of their
life on earth.
Although I don’t consider myself
“religious,” I was raised in the Jewish
tradition. I do feel a very spiritual connection
with life and believe that there is a spirit that
survives energetically after our physical body has
completed this life’s journey. I was surprised
and moved to tears during the last days leading up
to Carlin’s-mother’s passing. As I held
her hand, there were no words that passed between
us, but I felt overwhelmed with love, compassion,
and care. As I looked into her eyes, it was like
looking in the eyes of God. At the time, and even
now, I wasn’t even sure what those words
meant. Clearly, I was experiencing something in a
realm beyond words.
In this time of caregiving for Carlin, I am once
again experiencing the beauty, joy, and unspeakable
love that passes between us and connects us both
with the mystery we call God. Whatever your
spiritual or religious beliefs, we all will have
opportunities to become caregivers at some point in
our lives.
Men are often taught to care at a distance.
Early on, we are taught that being a real man
involves being a successful breadwinner. The old
rules told us that our work was out in the world
and women’s work was at home with the children
and later taking care of aging parents and often
aging spouses.
I first learned a more hands-on type of
caregiving when our first son, Jemal, was born on
November 21, 1969. Back then fathers were not
allowed in the delivery room at Kaiser hospital
where I was able to be with my wife up until the
last stage of the birth process. “Your job is
finished now, Mr. Diamond”, the nurse told me.
“You can leave now. We’ll find you in the
waiting room and let you know as soon as your baby
is born.”
I knew the rules and at that time of my life I
was inclined to follow them. I kissed my wife and
squeezed her hand as she was wheeled out the door
and down the hallway to the right, while I went to
the left to wait, feeling glad that I had completed
my caregiving and could await the birth of the new
member of our family. But something wouldn’t
allow me to go through the waiting room doors. I
felt a call from my unborn child saying, “I
don’t want a waiting-room father. Your place
is her with us.” I was startled by the words I
heard in my mind, but I didn’t hesitate a
moment.
I turned around and walked back the way I had
come. I found the delivery room and pushed my way
through the doors and took my place at the head of
the table. There was no question of leaving if
asked. I knew where I belonged regardless of what
the rules were. Shortly thereafter our son, Jemal,
was born.
As I held this tiny being in my arms for the
first time, I made a promise to him that I would be
a different kind of father than my father was able
to be for me and to do everything I could to care
for him and to care for the world he would grow up
in. Two years later we adopted a 2 ½ month old
African American daughter we named Angela.
Being a distant dad was never an option for me.
I quickly learned the joys and challenges of being
a hands-on father. I took time off from work when
Jemal was born and took a stint of full-time
caretaking when he was an infant and my wife wanted
to take a break and visit a friend. I was terrified
at first to have my wife away and have Jemal to
myself thinking that mothers had some inherent
knowledge about baby care that fathers lacked.
I still believe that is true, but fathers can
learn and sometimes being thrown into the deep end
of the caregiving pool requires that we learn fast.
That was true again when Angela needed an operation
when she was a year old and both my wife and I had
to become full-time caretakers for her during the
first two years of her life.
Caregiving is not easy. It requires us to become
warriors for life. In my book, The
Warrior’s Journey Home: Healing Men, Healing
the Planet, I shared what I learned from
meditation master Chögyam Trungpa. In his
book, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the
Warrior, Trungpa says,
“Warriorship here does not
refer to making war on others. Aggression is the
source of our problems, not the solution. Here
the word ‘warrior’ is taken from the
Tibetan pawo, which literally mans ‘one who
is brave.’ Warriorship in this context is
the tradition of human brav
He concludes,
“The key to warriorship and the
first principle of Shambhala vision is not being
afraid of who you are.”
Taking care of my children was my introduction
to getting to know myself as never before and to a
kind of warriorship I never knew existed. Taking
care of aging parents was another lesson in
warriorship, as is taking care of my wife as she
approaches her 85th birthday and me my 80th. But we
are being called to an even greater calling of
caretaking—caring for Earth that is the parent
of us all.
In the last chapter of The Warrior’s
Journey Home, I quoted my colleague psychologist
and philosopher, Sam Keen, who offered a clear
statement of the challenge humanity is facing.
- “The radical vision of the future
rests on the belief that the logic that
determines either our survival or our
destruction is simple:
- The new human vocation is to heal the
earth.
- We can only heal what we love.
- We can only love what we know.
- We can only know what we
touch.”
I have been writing about this kind of
caregiving in two articles on the transformations
we are facing in our world today. Trungpa reminds
us that the
“Shambhala vision teaches that,
in the face of the world’s great problems,
we can be heroic and kind at the same time.
Shambhala vision is the opposite of selfishness.
When we are afraid of ourselves and afraid of
the seeming threat the world presents, then we
become extremely selfish. We want to build our
own little nests, our own cocoons, so that we
can live by ourselves in a secure way.”
Trungpa goes on to say,
“But we can be much braver than
that. We must try to think beyond our homes,
beyond the fire burning in the fireplace, beyond
sending our children to school or getting to
work in the morning. We must try to think how we
can help this world. If we don’t help,
nobody will. It is our turn to help the world.
At the same time, helping others does not mean
abandoning our individual lives…In fact,
you can start with yourself. The important point
is to realize that you are never off duty. You
can never just relax, because the whole world
needs your help.”
Men have been engaged in violent conflicts for
too long now. As Trungpa reminds us,
“Aggression is the source of
our problems, not the solution.”
Men are being called to a new kind of
caregiving, a new kind of warriorship, at home and
in the world. Our time is now and we are needed as
never before.
If you like these articles, please share
them.
©2023 Jed
Diamond
See Books,
Issues
+ Suicide
* * *
Wealth can't buy health, but health can buy
wealth. - Henry David Thoreau
Jed Diamond
is the internationally best-selling author of seven
books including Male
Menopause, now
translated into 17 foreign languages and his
latest book, The
Irritable Male Syndrome: Managing. The 4 Key Causes
of Depression and
Aggression. For over
38 years he has been a leader in the field of men's
health. He is a member of the International
Scientific Board of the World Congress on
Men’s Health and has been on the Board of
Advisors of the Men’s Health Network since its
founding in 1992. His work has been featured in
major newspapers throughout the United States
including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall
Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and USA
Today. He has been featured on more than 1,000
radio and T.V. programs including The View with
Barbara Walters, Good Morning America, Inside
Edition, CBS, NBC, and Fox News, To Tell the Truth,
Extra, Leeza, Geraldo, and Joan Rivers. He also did
a nationally televised special on Male Menopause
for PBS. He looks forward to your feedback.
E-Mail.
You can visit his website at www.menalive.com
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