I once worked with a woman in her home after she'd broken her hip.
The shower was in the basement.
She hadn't tried the stairs since coming home, and she was afraid of falling again. Her daughter was too.
So they found another way.
Three times a week, her daughter helped her out the front door, into the car, and drove her around to the other side (the back side) of the house, where they could get into the basement and she could shower (Yes, the only shower she could safely use was in the basement 🤷🏾♂️).
Out the front door.
Into the car.
Around the house.
For a shower.
When you hear it described that way, it sounds like a lot.
And it was.
But it worked, though.
Mom got her showers.
Nobody fell.
The fear was respected, and the routine kept carrying on.
Then the daughter had a trip coming up.
A paid caregiver could cover while she was gone, but the caregiver wouldn't be able to drive her around to the back of the house.
The arrangement that had been working all along turned out to have one requirement nobody had said out loud (though it was assumed).
It needed the daughter.
So while I was there, we practiced the stairs together.
That's when the real problem revealed itself.
You see, while she had some difficulty with the physical act of walking down the stairs, turns out…that wasn’t her biggest challenge.
Her biggest challenge was she couldn't easily see where the stairs ended and the floor began.
So, of course the stairs felt dangerous!
I suggested the daughter remove the small throw rug at the bottom, near the base of the stairs, then put a strip of fluorescent tape on that last step… enough contrast that there would be no question where it was.
They were very pleased (and honestly surprised) with how simple it was.
A strip of tape.
What the car trip had, to this point, been covering.
Nobody in that home did anything wrong.
The car trip was a reasonable answer to a real fear.
It solved the problem three times a week.
And because the arrangement kept working, there wasn't much of a reason to question it.
That's the part worth focusing on:
The workaround carried the load, and in doing so it also covered up what was underneath.
What we found was one specific obstacle nobody had recognized: she couldn't clearly distinguish the last step from the landing at the bottom of the stairs.
If her doctor had asked whether she was showering, the honest answer would have been yes.
Everything about the household said things were handled.
But the effort it took to keep them handled, and the reason it was needed, stayed out of sight.
You probably have a few of these.
Maybe you’re standing outside the bathroom whenever your mom showers.
Or you’ve quietly rearranged your evenings because your dad can’t manage the stairs as often as he used to.
There's usually a requirement built into it.
More often than not, that requirement is you.
If you weren't there
You don't need to audit every routine you've built.
That would just be one more task to add to a seemingly never-ending list of to-do’s.
A single question will do most of the work:
“What would happen if I weren't here to do this?”
If the answer is "it would just get done another way," you can let that one be.
If the answer is "it wouldn't happen," or "someone could get hurt," that's a workaround worth a second look.
You're not doing it wrong.
It's simply resting entirely on you, and you're one sick day or one trip away from finding that out the hard way.
When you do take that second look, ask what the workaround is actually working around.
Sometimes the answer is big and can't be changed, and the workaround is exactly the right call.
Sometimes it's a last step down to the basement that's hard to see.
You won't know which until you look at the problem instead of the routine that's been handling it.
Looking doesn't commit you to changing anything.
It just means you're choosing the arrangement instead of inheriting it.
So pick one this week.
Just one.
Start with the routine that would fall apart first if you suddenly couldn't be there.
That daughter’s trip forced her to reconsider a routine she’d come to depend on.
But, you don’t have to wait for something like that to happen.
With you,
Bryce
P.S. If you're in the middle of trying to hold all of this together and it's getting hard to see clearly, that's what I use Care Strategy Sessions for.
We take everything you're carrying and lay it out so you can see what actually needs your attention and what can wait.
You can book one 👉🏾 HERE
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