Part 1: The Expectations vs. Our Reality
Updated: 5 days ago
Welcome to Part 1 of my four-part series on caring for aging parents.
As we see our parents age, most of us picture a specific kind of future for them: enjoying retirement, spending time with grandchildren, traveling, and living each day doing exactly what they want to do.
My parents camping outdoors in their active years—even after my mom’s stroke.
When I thought of my parents and how they would live their senior years, never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it would look like it does today—especially in the case of my dad.
My dad was a true linguist. Though he spent over four decades as a professor at USC, his pursuit of knowledge was never confined to a classroom or a formal curriculum. He was largely self-taught in Japanese and Mandarin, choosing immersion and self-study over traditional coursework. He pored over books, absorbed the culture, and traveled whenever he could.
He looked for every real-world opportunity to practice. If a friend came over who spoke Chinese, he’d immediately strike up a conversation to practice his Mandarin. Whenever we went out to eat at Japanese restaurants, he always ordered in Japanese. He was fluent in four languages, including Korean and English, and was trying to learn Mongolian—though to this day, I’m not quite sure how far he got with it.
His love for languages and his passion for travel went hand in hand. I still don't know which came first—if traveling made him want to learn languages, or if learning languages gave him the desire to travel.
He was also a health nut—physically fit and unwaveringly disciplined. So when he finally retired from academia at the age of 84, his plan was to travel off the beaten path throughout Asia.
To look at him, you would have never guessed his age. He took care of himself—walking five to eight miles a day, eating a clean, disciplined diet, and staying as active as possible. He looked easily ten years younger than his age—and he definitely wasn’t shy about bragging about it.
His mind was always working, too. Our house was filled with shelves of books—linguistics journals, world cultures, and travel guides—alongside his collection of classical LPs and favorite folk records. In his study, his desk was always covered in Post-it notes—a map of a mind that never stopped studying, researching, and thinking.
My mom, on the other hand, faced severe health challenges at a much younger age. In her early 50s, she suffered a stroke that initially left the entire right side of her body paralyzed. She never regained full mobility on that side, but through sheer strength of will and adapting with her left side, she built her independence back from the ground up.
Looking back over the years, what she was able to accomplish still amazes me. She willed herself to do everything: the cooking, laundry, dishes, and cleaning. Using her left foot and left hand, she drove on the freeway and navigated everywhere without limitations. Although she walked with a limp, she never let her disability stop her from living a full, adventurous life—whether traveling to Korea, going on a church trip to Israel, or camping outdoors. While she has had to slow down today, at 83 years old she is still singing strong in her church choir. I didn't fully grasp the magnitude of it at the time, but today I realize what a testament it was to her spirit. There was very little she couldn't do compared to someone with full use of both sides of their body, and in many ways, she did even more.
Left: Mom in front of the Louvre in Paris pre-stroke. Right: In her church choir gown, never letting obstacles slow her down.
She is a true fighter—mentally tough and fiercely determined. Over the years, she survived two major accidents: one that left her with cracked ribs and a fractured wrist, and another that required a hip replacement. Every single time, she pushed through the recovery and kept living life independently. People who saw her then—and see her now—are consistently amazed and inspired by her resilience.
I honestly don't know how she emotionally processed having a stroke so young, because she rarely let it slow her down. It is only now, in her 80s, that age is finally catching up with her. The physical toll of relying entirely on her left side for decades has made daily life more challenging, forcing her to slow down and accept help.
That same fighting spirit and fierce independence that helped her survive is also what can drive me completely crazy. Her strength comes with deep stubbornness, and as her child turned caregiver, it can feel like she fights me on almost everything. Balancing respect for her independence with the sheer frustration, stress, and exhaustion of trying to help her has been one of the hardest parts of this journey.
I recognize her resilience as one of the greatest examples of strength I have ever known—but living on the receiving end of that stubbornness as her caregiver is a daily challenge of its own.
Which brings us to where we are today.
Never did I imagine that my mother, who fought so fiercely for her independence after her stroke, would now be living in a senior living community. And never in my wildest dreams did I think my dad—the vibrant scholar, world traveler, and self-taught linguist—would be living in a Memory Care facility, his vast world narrowed down to a single room.
Our family’s journey didn't follow the script we had imagined, but it is the path we are walking together. I invite you to follow along as I navigate this often overwhelming, but deeply meaningful journey of an adult child turned caregiver.
