Here is something most people never see coming: the hardest part of caring for an aging parent is not the logistics. It is the grief. The grief for who your parent used to be, for the life you thought you would be living by now, and for the version of yourself that is quietly disappearing inside a role you never planned to fill. Couple that with being there for kids, even adult kids, and it can feel like a lot.Candace Dellacona is a New York City estate attorney known as "a family's lawyer," advising families, athletes, and...
Here is something most people never see coming: the hardest part of caring for an aging parent is not the logistics. It is the grief. The grief for who your parent used to be, for the life you thought you would be living by now, and for the version of yourself that is quietly disappearing inside a role you never planned to fill. Couple that with being there for kids, even adult kids, and it can feel like a lot.
Candace Dellacona is a New York City estate attorney known as "a family's lawyer," advising families, athletes, and entertainers on estate planning, asset protection, and the full arc of what it takes to navigate a family through its most vulnerable seasons. Not just the logistics, but also the many, more nuanced shifts in identity, relationships, and responsibilities. She is also a member of the sandwich generation herself, which is what led her to launch The Sandwich Generation Survival Guide podcast. She brings both the legal expertise and the lived experience to this conversation.
What you will explore in this conversation:
- Why the sandwich generation is far broader than you think, and why it applies to you even if your parents are healthy right now, or your kids are grown
- The four shifts that happen inside you during a caregiving season, identity, ownership, grief, and loneliness, and why we almost never talk about them
- Why the conversations about aging, death, and documents are almost always saved for the worst possible moment, and how to have them earlier in a way that actually feels like love
- The three-person team that can change everything, and what each one actually does
- The unexpected beauty that enters the equation in a caregiving season, the reconciliation, the closeness, the chance to usher someone you love through
If you have a parent who is still healthy and you have never had a real conversation about what happens if that changes, this one is for you.
You can find Candace at: Website | The Sandwich Generation Survival Guide Podcast | LinkedIn | Episode Transcript
Next week, I am sitting down with Dr. Joshua Coleman, a psychologist who has spent years studying something that is reshaping American families in ways most of us have not fully reckoned with: family estrangement. Why it is rising, what is actually driving it, and what to do if you are on either side of it. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you get your podcasts so you do not miss it.
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