The prompt was to finish the sentence: “When I look back at the year, I am most proud of…”

What I’m most proud of is, essentially, being a grown up. I was always immature when it came to talking about my parents’ eventual passings, refusing to have any sort of prep discussions, etc. So, when my father passed last year, I was a little blindsided. At first, it seemed pretty seamless - taking care of funeral home stuff; OPM, Social Security, insurance, banking, etc. for both his paperwork and whatever needed to be done to ensure my mom was set up; selling his car, and so on. What I wasn’t prepared for was my mom. He never told me just how bad her memory and possible early dementia had gotten. His passing only made everything worse for her fragile state of mind - and it was one challenge after another. At times, I wanted to give up and run away. At other times, I tried to work out if I needed to quit my job and take on caregiving full-time, which would have damaged my only mental health. And I still needed to work out my own grief, keep working, and learn to set boundaries with my mom’s constant demands for attention and care. A year later, we survived. Mom is in an assisted living facility and starting to thrive; I have a life that includes time with her AND time just for me-things…and we are starting to make new memories.