The Sacred Side of Caregiving
We spend so much time talking about how hard caregiving is, and it is brutal, exhausting, and sometimes thankless, but what we don’t talk about nearly enough is the other side of it, the part that feels harder to describe because it’s almost too sacred to put into words. It is the honor of it. The honor of standing in the storm with the person you love most, of being given the chance to live out promises that were once just words spoken in front of family and friends, but are now blood-and-bone truth.
When I said my vows, like so many people do, I meant them in that sweet, idealized way you mean them when the future is abstract and full of possibility. For better or worse, in sickness and in health. It’s easy to believe those words when you’re in the better, when wellness, shiny love, and a lifetime of possibilities lie ahead. It is an entirely different thing to stand years later, stripped bare by circumstance, and still be able to say, “I meant it then, and I mean it now.”
The truth is, not every relationship is built to withstand that kind of weight. When sickness, struggle, hardships, or loss press down, sometimes those vows ring hollow. For me, though, caregiving didn’t arrive as something foreign. I grew up surrounded by people who showed me, through their everyday actions, what it means to care for family. My grandparents, my parents, they don’t just talk about devotion; they live it. They keep showing up when it’s inconvenient, when it’s costly, when it requires steady sacrifice. I’ve watched them choose love in the hardest moments, and I carry their example with me now. It anchors me.
Make no mistake, it is gutting to bear witness to suffering. To sit in the room where pain lingers, to watch someone you love slowly lose pieces of themselves while you stand helplessly against the tide. It cracks something in you that can never be put back the same way. And yet, alongside the challenge, there is a strange kind of beauty. The beauty of knowing this is what love looks like when it’s stripped of pretense. Not just the fun, easy parts, but the staying power in the hard parts. It’s not a burden I resent. It feels like a privilege, a continuation of the legacy I’ve been given. To care is to love, and to love is to honor the people who made me who I am.
I don’t go to church, but I feel like I live it every day within the walls of my home. In the small, unremarkable acts of care that no one else sees. This feels like holy work to me, the radical act of offering love fully, unconditionally, and without the assurance of anything in return. Maybe that’s why this work feels so sacred, because even though I never imagined myself here, I’ve learned what it means to stay. To keep showing up, not because it’s easy or rewarding, but because love is worth nothing if it can’t endure the hard parts. That’s the inheritance I was given, and that’s the one I hope to pass on.
That, to me, is holy ground.
There is nothing greater we can do. No career success, no status, no accumulation of wealth, no curated image of a perfect life will ever outweigh the quiet, steady act of showing up for the people who make up your inner circle. It is the most radical thing, and also the most ordinary. It is sacred precisely because it is done in kitchens and hospital rooms and late-night whispers when the rest of the world isn’t watching.
The lesson that keeps circling back to me is this: this kind of showing up should not stop at one person, even if that person is your whole world. It has to ripple outward. To your kids, who are watching how you love. To those close to us who need reminders that loyalty and gentleness still have a place in this world. And maybe hardest of all, to yourself, because if you refuse to show up for yourself, the well runs dry faster than you can refill it.
Caregiving has gutted me in ways I never imagined, but it has also cracked open a different kind of love that feels bigger than I knew was possible. It’s not just about what it takes from me. It’s about what it gives me, the chance to prove, to the people I love most, that my love is real, that my words were not just a performance, that I meant every vow I made. It is a brutal gift, but it is a gift all the same.
