[cromulent]

I wish I had some good answers for you. I have been through this with my wife when my children were young.

One thing I would do better if / when I go through it again: When people say: "If there is anything you need, just ask", accept immediately and specifically.

- please mow my lawn every week, or organize someone else

- please do this shopping trip for me

- please cook Friday evening meals and bring them around

- please wash my car

I'm really busy, please make this problem go away for me.

People are often keen to help, they just don't know how. Tell them.

[Vanderson]

I would also add that many people are not used to asking for help like this, and he may need to really encourage his mother to get requests out of her.

It took a long time for my father to ask for help, and I could have been helping sooner.

[cromulent]

True, yes.

I actually meant: as one of the primary caregivers, you will be very busy and very drained emotionally. Accept help if offered.

The examples above would have been useful to me, if only to spare some energy for getting through the week.

It was also very draining on me to have people come around to talk about things and "support" us (actually the reverse in many cases), so I would also try to avoid these favours becoming social events. That's what would work for me, anyway.

[trynewideas]

Counterpointing this: the pandemic is still a complicating factor in a lot of this. When people asked me during the peak of the pandemic, I couldn't justify asking for any of those because we were so strongly advised to eliminate all contact and isolate for the patient's compromised immune system. Even with vaccines and treatments now, and a better understanding of how COVID does and doesn't spread, that advice hasn't substantially changed.

Also, if you're someone reading this and considering it encouragement to say "if there is anything you need, just ask", please don't reach for that first.

Doing so puts more work on the caretaker to plan and manage work for you to do — the caretaker then has to take care of you, too, because your offer to help is also your attempt to be, or at least feel, useful in the face of something intangible where you're functionally helpless. Multiply that by 5, 10, 20, 50 depending on the size of the caretaker's social circle and just MANAGING the requests to come up with things to do to help is a full-time form of caretaking that pulls them away from taking care of the person who actually needs it.

If you truly do want to help, identify specific things, plan the work yourself, and offer that plan such that all that's needed is a yes/no answer, and take whatever the answer is guilt-free — and be prepared for it to be no, and to live your life content with that.

If the yard looks unkept, show up to take care of it, or tell them you have a quote for a landscaper and are willing to pay for it. Drop off packaged food, easy meals they can choose when to eat because schedules don't matter any more. Give them your number and tell them to contact you any time, no questions asked, for any reason, especially to just talk about any random bullshit. If the caretaker doesn't take advantage of any of that, don't dare put any pressure, even the gentlest amount, to change their mind.