Let me tell you about my mom.

More than 20 years ago, driving home very late one night in subzero temperatures, she came across a raccoon in the middle of the road with its head stuck in a peanut butter jar. Now, most people would have driven right on past. Not my mom. Without a coat, hat, or gloves, she pulled over at one in the morning, started praying for that raccoon, and flagged down passing cars until a small rescue party formed. Eventually a sheriff arrived with a loop, and a young man grabbed hold of the jar, and together they freed that raccoon. The raccoon scurried off to live another day, the male members of the rescue party talked football in the freezing weather, and mom headed home, cold but triumphant.

That’s who my mom is: fierce, funny, stubborn, compassionate. To this day, she is still all of those things. What has changed is her health. In the last few years, she has faced challenges that none of us would wish for, and I’ve had the honor of being with her on the journey, both as her daughter and as one of her caregivers.

While many of us will never find ourselves in the middle of the road at one in the morning freeing a suffocating raccoon, the themes of that moment are present in all of our lives: the unexpected stop, the inconvenient interruption, the choice to help when it would be easier to keep going. Walking alongside my mom in this hardest season of her life has helped me see that more clearly. This journey with her has taught me four truths: we can only make it through the hardest days when we stay connected; resilience isn’t about pretending things aren’t hard, it’s about finding a way to keep going anyway; autonomy matters, and every person deserves the dignity of choice; and growth is possible, as long as we keep moving forward together.

When my mom has a bad day, it means I’m going to be needed a lot. That’s hard. It’s hard for mom because she hates to ask, especially when she knows I have something special happening in my life. And it’s hard for me, because as much as I love my mom, some days I could really use a break. Yet in the hardest moments, she and I have found a way to stay connected and to be okay with each other, even when the situation itself is anything but okay. That fact has changed our relationship. These past few years our relationship has deepened and gotten stronger, to be the best it has ever been because we are navigating this road together.

Resilience is a word that gets thrown around a lot. For me, it looks like this: when my mom has a really tough day, I feel stretched pretty thin. I get tired. I wonder how I’m going to keep doing this. And then I remember: she is the one living in her body, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Remembering that helps me connect to my compassion, and compassion gives me the strength to keep showing up. That’s resilience: not pretending things aren’t hard, but choosing to keep showing up anyway.

One of the hardest truths I’ve learned with my mom is about autonomy. Although I’m usually the girl with the plan, there are many times when my plan isn’t her plan. Her needs are complex, the path is often uncertain, and it feels like there’s no clear next step some days. Those are some of our hardest moments. I’ve had to learn that the decision isn’t mine, it’s ours. The strongest plans come when we both contribute our thoughts and listen to each other. For me, that means leaving space for mom’s choices, even when they take us in a different direction than I could have imagined.

Over the past 17 months, my mom has moved five times: from her own home in Kansas to independent living near me in Fort Collins; from independent living to assisted living, then to a larger apartment in the same facility; from assisted living to rehab after a hospital stay; and finally to long term care, where she lives now. Each time, we learned a little more about what she needed. And each time, we get closer to finding the place where she will have the care she needs and a chance to thrive. On this journey, we didn’t always agree on the next steps, and we certainly got frustrated sometimes. Through it all, we shared the same goal: helping her find a place where she could be safe, happy, and whole. That’s growth: not a straight line, not always easy, but a process of learning, and listening, and adjusting, and doing all that together.

You’ve probably figured this out: my mom is amazing. She is fierce and funny and compassionate, and just the right amount of stubborn. She has taught me so much about connection, resilience, autonomy and growth. More than twenty years ago, my mom stopped in the middle of a freezing road because a raccoon needed help, and she couldn’t look away. Today, the road looks different. The cold shows up in new ways. And now I’m the one pulling over, staying longer than planned, flagging down help when I need it, and trusting that we’ll figure it out together. The details of the story have changed; the heart of it hasn’t. Love looks like stopping. It looks like choosing connection over convenience. And sometimes, it looks like staying on the road a little longer than you expected because that’s what the moment asks of you.