Dear Readers,

This one is for all of you who have thought about being a live-in caregiver but haven't done it. Maybe you are overthinking it. I've got a story for you—one that seems to suggest that making yourself useful is the Secret to Life.

In late 2014, I got a call from Brooke, my older sister in Kentucky, shortly after I had lost my beloved wife to cancer. Brooke asked if I could pop over to Wisconsin (from Michigan) to help our younger sister, Robin, whose diabetes had just cost that girl her right big toe. Brooke added that Robin was going to check out of the hospital soon—and could use my help “for a week or so.”

I figured anything would be better for me than going from room to room in my house in Michigan, weeping and calling out Carol Ann's name (which, to tell the truth, was exactly what I was doing, when Brooke called). I jumped at the chance to drive west and do a family member a quick favor. Long story short, I am still here, some eight years later, because, well, one thing led to another.

Robin needed someone to drive her everywhere, keep track of her myriad meds, and help spoil her dog. So, I moved in. Oh, she also has what one doc at St. Elizabeth Hospital described as “severe dementia.” But fortunately, that blended well with my incipient senility. Robin and I both started making jokes about our marginal minds and wondering aloud what her dog thought of being part of such a screwy dynamic.

Flash forward half a year to mid-2015, and Robin learned that sepsis, a condition that causes all the bacteria in one's entire body to attack one's entire body and render that someone quite dead, was an additional threat to her well-being. Her surgeon recommended below-knee amputation of her right leg to ensure that sepsis, known to be fatal, would not take her out.

She agreed to the operation, and a nurse in the room then asked me how long I could do the live-in caregiver thing. A voice emphatically said, “For the duration.” My God, that was my voice. I thought I was having an out-of-body experience…. Anyway, someone or something volunteered me to take care of my kid sister indefinitely. Her dog received the news with mixed emotions. (I tease dogs, but also give them fantastic belly rubs.)

We have all since become a small business, of sorts—the business of living. We are all coping with aging, too. Robin is 82, I am 85, and Robin's dog, Brooke (yes, named after our sister, Brooke) is estimated to be around 10 years old (around 70, in human years). Doggie Brooke was a stray that Robin saved from the pound a couple years before I became a Son of Wisconsin. That dog is so grateful, she is constantly licking us.

Hey, I have no idea if my story will convince anyone to be a live-in caregiver, but I recommend it if you are feeling kind of unchallenged, you know?

—Michael E. Hearons