The caregiving season

On February 9, I found my mom on the floor of her bedroom, unable to talk or move. She was having a brain haemorrhage — though we’d only find that out hours later at the hospital.

I remember everything vividly, even though I’d much rather forget… her altered breathing, her naked, shaking legs, her full weight against my chest as I tried to hold her.

Time seemed to never pass. I was told the ambulance took just fifteen minutes, but to me the wait felt like a whole lifetime in slow motion.

Mom is strong as an ox, so yes — she made it through. But complete recovery has been ruled out. She’ll be home for two weeks over Easter, then back to hospital for one final month of rehab.

Her new disability — and the emotional and logistical weight of caregiving — is what’s keeping me up at night these days. (Hello: it’s 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning as I type this on my phone.)

I really thought this would be the season of motherhood. All I wanted was to plant my feet deep into the moist, dark soil of grounded love — to grow roots and branches and leaves. Flowers and fruit. To sway in the breeze, holding my baby in my arms, in an eternal spring

But instead, I seem to have stepped into that phase when parents begin to struggle and it becomes the children’s turn to step in. I can already tell it won’t be easy to help her the way we wish we could. There are so many compromises to make, solutions to invent—and in the middle of it all, little ones to raise and keep safe.

Right now, caring for my mother feel like stealing from my baby. And caring for my baby feel like I’m stealing from my mom. Can I hold space for one and the other — and for myself as well? And if so, how?

The more I ask myself these questions, the more I glimpse flashes of light — hidden resources buried deep in beds of rock and stone, at the core of who we are. They’re there, waiting to be unearthed.

Becoming a mother has shown me this truth in all its rawness and splendour. Francesca gives us so much strength. And it’s in this newfound well of endless love that I’ll go to quench my thirst. Draw water for my pale, soft roots. Help this seedling become a tree — taller, stronger, more laden with fruit than I ever imagined.

It's 7.30am now, and the darkness has gone. Maybe, all I wanted to tell you this morning is to please believe that we - me, you, anyone - already carry the tools to make it work, no matter the circumstances. 

Perhaps embracing that realisation is the first important step in this long-haul game called life.

Mom, Pier and baby Francesca being the coolest gang of the hospital - Lido di Venezia, April 2025.