Community Blog

How to Talk to Your Aging Parent About In-Home Care (Without It Going Badly)

Many of the families I talk to don’t call me because they can’t afford care or because they haven’t been able to find an agency. They call me because they haven’t figured out how to have the conversation with their parent, and the not-having-the-conversation is slowly wearing them down. If that’s where you are —...

Does Medicare Pay for In-Home Care? What Michigan Families Should Know Before Open Enrollment

One of the first questions families ask me, often in the first five minutes of a phone call, is whether Medicare will pay for the care their parent needs at home. They ask it hopefully, because their parent has paid into Medicare for a whole working life, and it seems reasonable that it would cover...

When It's Time for Mom or Dad to Stop Driving: A Gentle Guide for Michigan Families

Of all the conversations families bring to me, this is one of the hardest to begin. A daughter calls about her father’s memory, or her mother’s balance, and near the end of the call, almost as an afterthought, she says, and I’m not sure she should still be driving. Then she goes quiet, because she...

After the Hospital: A Practical Guide for Ann Arbor Families Bringing Mom or Dad Home

The call I take most often goes something like this: “My mom was fine two weeks ago. She fell. She has been at Michigan Medicine for four days. They are telling us she is getting discharged tomorrow and she can’t be alone. We don’t know what to do.” If that’s where you are right now...

VA Aid and Attendance: How Michigan Veterans and Their Spouses Can Get Help Paying for Home Care

There’s a conversation I’ve had more times than I can count, and it goes almost exactly the same way every time. A family calls about home care for their father. We talk through what he needs and what it would cost. There’s a pause while they do the math in their head, and then someone...

Dementia Care at Home in Ann Arbor: What to Expect, How to Prepare, and When to Ask for Help

There’s a particular kind of exhaustion I see in families caring for a parent with dementia, and it doesn’t look like ordinary tiredness. It looks like something quieter and more layered. It’s the exhaustion of loving someone who is slowly becoming less recognizable, while also holding the grocery list, the medication schedule, the doctor appointments,...

How to Choose a Home Care Agency in Ann Arbor: 12 Questions Every Family Should Ask (and the Answers You Want)

After a decade of walking families through this decision, first as a hospice chaplain, then as a home care agency owner, I’ve come to believe that the families who choose well are the ones who ask better questions. Most families comparing agencies ask about price and availability, which is understandable but not enough. The right...

Hospice at Home: What I Wish Every Family Knew (From a Former Hospice Chaplain)

Before I owned a home care agency, I was a hospice chaplain. Before that, I was a hospital chaplain through the first year of the pandemic. And before either of those, I spent more than a decade in church ministry. I say that not as a credential but as context for what follows, because the...

The Holiday Visit: What to Watch For When You Go Home This Year

Every January, my phone starts ringing more than it does the rest of the year. The calls all sound roughly the same. Someone flew home for Thanksgiving or Christmas, spent three or four days in the house they grew up in, and came away with a feeling they can’t quite shake. Mom seemed off. I...