Gail Sheehy is the author of 15 books, but is best known for her book Passages, which remained on the New York Times Bestseller’s List for over three years. She’s an out-spoken advocate for Boomers, urging them to use each turning point in life to advantage. When Sheehy’s husband became ill, she was personally faced with a turning point of gigantic proportions – one even she hadn’t expected. She became a caregiver.

While millions of Boomers have deferred retirement plans of their own to care for aging parents, increasingly spouses are becoming caregivers to their mates, as well. Whether you are caring for aging parents, a spouse or even a grandparent, you’d be hard pressed not to find Sheehy’s Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos Into Confidence helpful. During her interviews with hundreds of caregivers throughout the country, Sheehy gained the knowledge and focus that combines well to make Passages in Caregiving an excellent guide.

Conveniently arranged for easy accessibility, Passages in Caregiving addresses nearly every turn in the caregiving road. Her personal story, “The Making of a Caregiver,” addresses the hours that suddenly changed her and her husband’s lives as a couple and defined her new role as a caregiver. For them, the crisis was cancer and the journey through the maze of cancer treatments lasted 17 years. For others, the crisis is a heart attack , a stroke or an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Whether our caregiving challenge comes on gradually or after a diagnosis of an acute illness matters little, since either can change the course of our lives.

Passages in Caregiving addresses the truth that far too many of us don’t talk about illness, death and the practical steps our loved ones need to take when the inevitable happens. While Sheehy acknowledges that we will all need to follow the path in our own way, she says that nearly all of us will experience some form of the turning points in what she terms the labyrinth of caregiving.

While traveling our caregiving journey, we will, once the first crisis is passed, enter into a “new normal.” During this phase, most of us will think that we can now go the road alone. Sheehy says, “You cannot do this alone.”

As Sheehy identifies each turn in the caregiving journey, she gives clear coping strategies. She alludes to our tendency to “play God, and then find out that we can’t do everything alone.” Sheehy skillfully guides readers to find their way back to their own center and realize how much they have done as a caregiver. The final turns in Passages in Caregiving are “The In-Between Stage” and “The Long Goodbye.” Through it all, Sheehy does more than just hold the caregiver’s hand. She gives distinct instructions to motivate the reader to take action.

Passages in Caregiving is a caregiver’s manual destined to be a classic. The book, published by Morrow, is available for $27.99 in bookstores and online.

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Tags: Caregivers, Caregivers balancing work-life issues, family, Health, Support, unpaid family caregivers