Oliver: How can you help a caregiver to feel valued and less alone?

I’ve been a family caregiver since my mother came to live with me in October 2014.

She had been having trouble living alone in Georgia, and I started getting phone calls from her friends there to tell me that it was time to bring her to Illinois. Happily, my mother didn’t fight me too much.

I knew that she had mild dementia, not because my mother ever told me, but because another of her friends who is a nurse told me.

Still, I had no idea what I was in for when she came to live with us. She had vascular dementia, and her condition worsened until she died in April 2018.

Of course, I worked as hard as I could to make her last years happy and healthy. And I’m grateful for all the lessons taking care of my mother taught me, since I’ve been using them to this day.

My husband, Tony, was dia