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Caregiving Is an Amateur Business with Sarah Vosburgh
Description
In this episode of Seeing Death Clearly, Sarah Vosburg shares the complicated reality of caregiving, grief, memory care, and learning to give herself grace for decisions made during an incredibly difficult time. Caring for a parent with dementia can mean making difficult choices without knowing whether there is a “right” answer.
Host Jill McClennen, a death doula and funeral celebrant, talks with Sarah, a retired school psychologist and author of Who Will Name the Bees? Sarah cared for her mother as dementia changed their relationship and eventually led to nine difficult months in memory care before her mother died in 2008.
Sarah shares some of the choices she faced as her mother’s needs changed, including concerns about unsafe driving, questions about her mother’s marriage, hospitalization, medication, and the challenges of navigating memory care. She describes caregiving as an “amateur business,” because families are often expected to make life-changing decisions without training or a clear roadmap.
After her mother died, Sarah began writing down memories that came to her during the night. Those memories eventually became a memoir weaving together caregiving, family history, poetry, grief, and the unusual conversation that inspired the book’s title.
Jill and Sarah also talk about caregiver burnout, loneliness, healing after caregiving ends, and the role writing can play in preserving a person’s legacy. Their conversation connects with many of the questions found in death doula work and end-of-life planning: how families care for one another through dying and loss, how grief changes over time, and how facing mortality can become part of conscious living.
Sarah’s story is a reminder that caregiving rarely comes with perfect answers—and sometimes healing begins with looking back at what happened with a little more grace.
00:00 Feeling Less Alone
00:17 Meet the Host and Guest
01:46 Sarah’s Background
02:36 Why Name the Bees
06:22 Beekeeping Lore and Loss
08:43 Turning Grief Into a Memoir
11:34 Writing Process and Structure
15:54 Publishing and Timeline
16:19 Cancer, Chemo, and Dementia
18:24 Memory Care and Hard Decisions
23:35 Caregiving Frustrations
24:59 Memory Care Failures
26:33 Grace and Hindsight
27:33 Audiobook Family Voices
28:21 Taking Away the Keys
31:11 Stop Arguing Dementia
33:28 Panini Generation Pressure
36:37 Caregiver Burnout and Loneliness
38:44 Finding Yourself Again
41:22 Book Links and Bee Names
43:07 Closing Thanks and Time
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