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I'm a working mom, and I'm also taking care of my dad. I live with guilt.

Michele Gorman   

I'm a working mom, and I'm also taking care of my dad. I live with guilt.
  • I live in New York City with my spouse and child, and also take care of my dad in Massachusetts.
  • My mom died of cancer when I was 14, and now my dad has been diagnosed with it.

A rainstorm brought historic flooding to New York City in 2023. News reports showed water gushing onto subway platforms and flowing from apartment ceilings and a zoo seal lion escaping its enclosure.

I've lived in the Queens borough of the city for the past 11 years. Relatives and friends texted me with iterations of, "Are you OK?" Sure, I was physically safe (I was out of state), but in all other senses of the word, no, I was not really OK.

I was inside my childhood home in Massachusetts with my dad, debating how quickly that night I could return home to my spouse and 2-year-old daughter, Ellie. My dad and I had just returned from a two-plus-hour round-trip drive for a follow-up with his cancer surgeon.

It wasn't until both my sister and father-in-law separately urged me to wait until it was light out in the morning to make the hourslong drive that I stopped to consider the actual danger I was about to put myself in. I would do anything to be with my daughter, even risk driving in historic conditions to do so even though one of my fears is dying and leaving Ellie without her mom.

My mom died of cancer when I was 14

I'm barely halfway through my 30s, and yet both of my parents have been diagnosed with cancer. My mom died from colorectal cancer when I was just 14 years old.

She died during the summer leading up to my high school freshman year. I worried about things like who would take me clothing shopping or tell me if I was wearing too much eyeliner.

Fast-forward two decades, I have more "grown-up" concerns now that I'm a mom. I wonder if my daughter will forget who I am while I'm away taking care of my dad. Will my husband and daughter have enough leftovers for several meals while I'm gone. Will she let me keep on singing to her before bed.

I've been on and off "OK" since July when we got the dreaded news that my dad had a cancerous tumor in his body. Since then, he has had an eight-hour-long surgery to remove the tumor near his pancreas, recovered, and started 12 cycles of chemotherapy.

I carry a lot of guilt

I'm grateful that I have been there for everything so far that I've needed or wanted to be.

But when I'm with my dad, I feel guilty I'm not with Ellie. And when I'm with Ellie, I feel guilty I'm not with my dad.

The balancing act is hard. It's really, really hard.

Just a few days before the birth of her second child, a friend said something that has stuck with me: "Through you, Ellie is learning the importance of family and stepping up when times get hard."

When I start to feel overwhelmed — which is more often than not, these days — I remind myself that Ellie won't remember the few days here and there when I was away helping Gramps, but my dad will remember the sacrifices I made to my own schedule to help care for him.

I'm all about girl power and wanting Ellie to realize someday that it's not "being a mom or nothing." So, I have to be more than "just" a mom, too.

Like when I return to my full-time job as a reporter after parental leave, when I miss an hour of playtime to fit in a run, and when I leave to catch a flight to Massachusetts.

It might be a few years until Ellie grasps this concept. But I hope when that time comes, she not only sees how important it is to fulfill her role as a mother and daughter but that she simultaneously can do both — even if she isn't physically present for every moment.

As a mother and daughter of a cancer patient, I'm reminded that time simultaneously moves slowly yet slips away.

Perhaps the best gift I can offer Ellie — and my dad — is being present.



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