Balancing Caregiving & Life: The Unfiltered Truth with Mark Steven Porro

In this heartfelt and humorous episode, I talk with actor and author Mark Steven Porro about his unexpected journey into full-time caregiving for his 90-year-old mother. From the title of his book, A Cup of Tea on the Commode, to the emotional lessons of empathy, boundaries, and resilience, Mark opens up about how caregiving changed his life — and possibly saved it.

We explore:

• What it means to provide unconditional love

• How to set boundaries as a caregiver

• The role of humor and storytelling in healing

• Why taking breaks is necessary — not optional

• The realities of caregiving without support vs. with support

Mark also shares behind-the-scenes moments from his acting career, how he ended up living in the south of France, and what he learned about living well from his parents’ final days.

Find Mark at the following links!
https://acupofteaonthecommode.org https://www.facebook.com/teaonthe https://www.youtube.com/@acupofteaonthecommode https://twitter.com/teaonthe https://www.instagram.com/a_cup_of_tea_on_the_commode https://www.linkedin.com/in/markporro https://www.pinterest.fr/acupofteaonthecommode https://www.tumblr.com/acupofteaonthecommode https://www.tiktok.com/@markstevenporro

📘 Grab his book: A Cup of Tea on the Commode

🧠 If you're a caregiver or know someone who is, this episode is for you. It's okay to laugh, cry, and feel all the in-betweens.

🎙️ Hosted by Nikki | Operational Harmony: Balancing Business & Mental Well-being
Subscribe for more conversations about the real stuff behind entrepreneurship, caregiving, and mental health.

[00:00:00] Hi, I'm Mark Steven Porro, the author of A Cup of Tea on the Commode. At 55, I gave up my Carefree Bachelor Life to become a first time parent to a 90-year-old, sharp tongue, guilt, tripping, stubborn is all get out. And yet, funny lady who could barely remember my name, my mother.

It's rare for a son to take on 24 7 caregiving, but I jumped in with gusto to fill my mom's last years with love, laughter, and joy. Not always successful, but I came pretty damn close. And so a cup of tea in the Commode Chronicles my three and a half year adventures with my mom. And I guess the main purpose of the book is to inspire others to find the joy in caregiving.

I did it and I think I'm a better man for it. Okay. I have done caregiving for my mother in the past, and I know that is definitely not an easy task to do. So yeah it's [00:01:00] as I found out for many people, but yeah. Yeah, emotionally. Mentally, emotionally and physically, it can be exhausting.

Since I didn't have children or so, I had to learn a lot about unconditional love. And I had a good relationship with my mother, but in her later years, she became, I called her an Archie Bunker type. She became a real curmudgeon and not that much fun to be around. But normally she was a pretty funny lady.

My dad was funny too. So humor. Played a big role in my upbringing and whenever there was any kind of crisis or stress, usually humor was the first thing that we pointed to. And I don't think my mom ever, I never heard her complain about pain or anything like that, so she was a tough woman.

And my dad also they were from the depression era and they kept their emotions to themselves and things like that. And so I think we picked up on some of that. But, yeah, it was a great learning experience for me, but I went in, I did ask for permission.

I didn't jump in right away with the 24 7. [00:02:00] She had a crisis in February of 2011 where she was not happy. I was in California living in LA at the time, and my brother called and said, mom, just shut down. And the doctor cut off all meds and food and we called hospice. She was living in the house we all grew up in, but we had a family living upstairs who were overseeing household duties and doing the shopping and laundry.

She needed some help. She could still walk and function for the most part but then as her personal hygiene abilities declined, we had to have someone come in and get her ready for bed at night and clean her up in the morning. And she usually went out to a senior center for some activities. But I think as time went on, she was just there was a lot of tension between the people who were living in there and and mom kept it pretty quiet from us, but I could feel it when I would visit.

And I think that she just kinda looked around and said, if this is gonna be my last, years of my life, I'm done. I'm [00:03:00] outta here. And so she just actually I think, willed herself to die. And so when hospice came in, we all my brother called me and our other siblings.

There were six of us. We all flew in to we were basically on death watch. And we had a priest come in and deliver the last rites. Mom's laying in bed. She didn't she opened her eyes very. Rarely, but she didn't speak and she did respond to touch, which was nice. So I think she sensed that we were there.

And one of us always stayed in the bedroom with her just in case. And a few weeks later before that, my, the younger sister and I hung out with hospice because we wanted to learn. How to take care of our mother. 'cause we wanted to do as much of that as possible for as long as mom wanted to be here.

So we learned a lot of the tips and tricks, how to change bedding with the helpless patient at bed, doing the diapers attending to any medical needs. At that point, she had some bed sores and so that, that gave us a lot of comfort to, to [00:04:00] care for her and learn. And that's where I actually started learning.

The proper way to do things. And I think mom's sense that love was back in the house and a few weeks later she snapped out of it. And then I started looking around. This house was no longer the beautiful, welcoming home that I grew up in. And I thought my mom deserved better and I needed to do some work to improve the environment.

And I stayed with her for a few months and I know that she liked it. She responded very positive to that. But I had to go back to LA at some point. I did have a business there. I was an actor for many years, but I was in my mid fifties, so I was aging out of that. Things were slowing up and but hospice was gonna be on duty.

At least in New Jersey when they're called they stay on for six months unless the patient expires before that. And so I went back to LA and then I came back in September for a few weeks and took care of her again and took her to her grandson's wedding at the Jersey Shore. And I had a great time getting her [00:05:00] all dialed up and ready for that.

That was her first outing. In seven months. And she had a great time and it was during that trip where I asked her if she wanted me to come back to make sure she was cared for this way all the time. And she said yes. And we had a funny conversation. I said, first of all, we're gonna have fun.

If I do this, second of all do you trust me? She said, yes. I said, do you understand I will do my best to keep you healthy and happy for the rest of your life? And she said, yes. And I said that means I'm in charge now. And you must have made me and her mood completely changed, but she puckered up for a kiss.

Now I called her a kissing band and she loved the kisses, and I wasn't sure if that was a sign of surrender or one wishing me luck. And so I gave her a kiss and hope for the best 'cause she could be a tough cookie. Originally, a New Yorker, and then for the last 50 or so years, a jersey girl.

Neither one of those states produces people who are sunshine and roses oh, they hide it [00:06:00] behind a very brash facade. Yes, that's what I meant. Yeah. So how long did you care for your mom? Our, I say our adventures lasted three and a half years. So not all of that was the full-time care. But this whole thing started in Sept or February of 2011. And she, I don't wanna ruin the ending of the book, but she left us in August of 20 14.

So a little over 10 years now. Yeah. I'm sorry that you lost her, but. It sounds like you got some great living advice from the experience. Oh, it was fabulous. I don't regret any of it. And if I had to say my mother left this world that in, in a way that would be the envy of others both of my folks did.

Actually, my dad died 14 years earlier. And he died in his bed with me by his side and my older sister [00:07:00] and my mother died in her bed. Very little pain. And I was with her and then my younger sister was with me when mom passed, and that was the way to go. It was a lovely time.

I learned a lot. It gave me such a kick to care for my mother and make her feel good. And my brothers and sisters were great. They were very supportive and they let me takeover. I'm the tallest kid, so maybe that had something to do with it. But we all trusted each other and so I was the hands-on guy and they yielded to me if I needed to do something but if I needed help, they would be there to support.

And so that was great, and my mother loved that as well. Can you share some of the lessons that you learned? I'd say the main one was unconditional love. Again, I was never married, had no kids, so my unconditional love was my love for animals growing up. And not being married and all that stuff.

Some people would say I had a commitment issue. Which I'm not so sure. [00:08:00] But with this particular challenge there was gonna be no commitment issue. I said I'm gonna do this and I will stay here as long as mom wanted to stay here. And no matter how hard it got there, of course there's some stressful moments and some un unpleasant moments, but.

Yeah, once you make that decision, it was easy to hang in there and say, this is my job. Plus I had to not disappoint my siblings or my mother, or the spirit of my dad. There was enough pressure self-induced pressure, but there was pressure on me to to do a good job and finish it.

I would also say then also empathy. Is something I learned and also that comes from my acting training and also my design training. I have a design degree from. The Ohio State University, and you really have to take into consideration your patient, your loved one, or in the design business, your client, the end user of whatever product you're designing.

And so you have to put yourself in their shoes. And in this case, it's still, she's still my mother. She still deserves respect [00:09:00] and love, but she's gonna be a little slower than she has been. She may not be with it. My mother did have some bit of dementia where she saw people outside the window that weren't there or on the ceiling, or we had discussions about things that never happened.

And you gotta kinda roll with the punches and say, this. And also early on this is a few months after taking over the 24 7. So I'm doing everything. There was no line. I didn't cross. But all in benefit of my mother's care. And so I wiped her butt several times a day. And out of her six kids, I'm the only one, she couldn't remember my name.

And and I thought she was kidding at first. She had a wicked sense of humor. And one morning I went in, I brought her juice in the morning and she said, now what is it I call you? And I said, you're kidding, right? And she says, no. I said, name your kids. She said, Laurel, Michael Carroll, David dc and she was stumped.

So I said, [00:10:00] mark, and she says, oh, mark. Mark with a KI said, yes, you named me, I'm your favorite son. And she says, I don't have favorites. And under my breath, I said you have a favorite to forget. So instead of taking that personally I made a visual aid for her. I put my name, a big block letters, and I taped it to the ceiling.

So when I would come in the morning. Her she'd be laying in bed. So normally I'd say Good morning. And she said, good morning. And then her eyes would shoot the ceiling for the visual aid and she would come back very proudly and go Mark. So after a few weeks, she didn't need that anymore.

But again, that's where the humor came in. And you can't take things like that personally because, that's just part of our getting older.

What's the name of your book again? It's called A Cup of Tea on the Commode. And that came from just practicality. My mother's favorite drink was hot tea, Skimm milk, no sugar. And sometimes we had a commode bedside. ' cause she couldn't walk anymore after this [00:11:00] incident. And sometimes Mother Nature took a little longer than was comfortable for either one of us on the commode.

And as a joke I just say, Hey, you want a cup of tea while we're waiting? And she said, sure. And it became a hit. And then part of our morning ritual. So a cup of tea and the commode was a very I thought a fun title and catchy and and also very practical.

How did you get to the South of France? How did I get to where you are now? France, south of France. Wow. I came here an ex-girlfriend of mine always wanted to retire in France and that kind of put the bug in my ear. We visited where I live now in 2015, in April of 2015.

And we were no longer a couple at that point, but we're still friends. I was still living in New Jersey and she was living in LA and we visited this little village and it's just a cool little village, about 8,500 people. And, we have the cobblestone streets. My apartment that I bought is about 500 years old.

They say Mollier [00:12:00] was born here. Not the playwright, but the character of the playwright Mollier is he came down from Paris and wrote some of his big plays here. And so it's a very theatrical place, but they also, they have their Hollywood Walk of fame. They have a lot of artists of all kinds, musicians.

Ceramicists. I have a blacksmith who's a neighbor mine that does some beautiful sculpture and metal and stuff like that. And so I felt very comfortable when I first came here. I came here for five days and saw this place and said, I'm gonna live here. And I put an offer in and about a year and a half later I moved and I didn't, I never expected to move to France, but it was we have French ancestors on my mother's side.

And I think they had something to do with it because I never learned the language. The people here have been so friendly. I'm getting better with the language, but still it's very difficult. And as we get older, it's really difficult. But they're just lovely and they keep apologizing for the bad English.

And it's [00:13:00] also in the middle of the largest wine growing region in the world, which is if you're into wine, great. If you're not, it's a fricking nightmare. I happen to be into the wine, so it's good. And the wine is literally cheaper than water here. It's amazing and it's excellent. And again, the people are passionate.

That's their main thing. Of course, the cheese and the bread and the croissants and all that stuff. But boy, the wine, you could stop off at a little domain and it may be a husband and wife that run that thing and they will stop and they'll sit and talk to you and have you sample their wine for a full afternoon.

And they just it's just lovely people. And they've got the way of life correct. Where they enjoy each other. They have a two hour lunch every day, which is great for the families because the kids come home for lunch from school, and that's their big meal. And if you're in the stores things shut down from 12 to two.

And once you get used to that, it's a little inconvenient when you first get [00:14:00] there. But boy, once you get used to that it's lovely. And Sundays are very quiet. Everything shuts down, I think around 1230 if there's not that many stores open. Normally the stores are closed at seven 30 anyway. So that's, there's no 24 7 stuff here.

And it's just lovely. It really is I call it my own little blue zone where everybody, they have a good social life and they eat well, and and yeah, life is good. That sounds excellent, except I tried to learn French when I was in middle school. Yeah. Yeah. That, that didn't go well, so well at all.

I don't remember most of it. I can do like the, they say we have 40,000 words in common, and there's a lot of words that we use that are the same thing, like anything with an ION. Question, convention situation, all those things are the same. Of course they say it, I think it's a little better.

Their accents are a little nicer. [00:15:00] But there's other things like on, on my book, commode is not a to a portable toilet Here, commode is a chest of drawers. Yeah. So when they hear the title of my book, they go. Why not? It's not like it's unique at all. They're going, sure, we put tea on the commode all the time.

No big deal. But it's yeah it's, yeah. That'll take some time. My girlfriend's fluent she's Swiss, so she, I. Sw Swiss, they either are fluent in at least one of German, Italian or French. So luckily she grew up on the French side of Switzerland. And she helps, but I usually know I'm in trouble when she speaks only French.

So that's I learned when I'm in trouble in French. Good to know.

Okay. Do you have anything else you wanna say before we switch over into the mental health? Yeah, yeah, go with the mental health 'cause there are some issues with my mother with that as well and we can talk about how I dealt with it or tried to deal with it. 'cause I had played a doctor on tv, so I knew some [00:16:00] things.

That's a question for you. What shows were you in if you were asking? I did a my big run I guess was in the eighties and early nineties. I did a lot of television. I went out there and I wanted to be a good actor, so I started studying from day one. I did have a connection with an agent, 'cause I did some modeling and some commercials in the Midwest before I moved out there.

And the, my agent said. Here's a good acting coach. Start studying with him. So I started studying with him for day one and my goal was to get on a quality show. Hill Street Blues was my main target, which was one of the top shows at the time. And less than two years later, I was on Hill Street Blues.

So that was quite good. So that was like my first major credit. And once you get that one. And people respect you a little more because they say if they hired you and you worked on that show, you must be pretty good. So that opened some doors for me. I, I did Dynasty Webster. It's a [00:17:00] living, a bunch of a bunch of TV shows. I had a I played a big drug Lord on the Walker, Texas Ranger. I'll have to, I'll have to ruin the ending. I do get killed at the end. But that was a fun role because, they ship you down to Dallas, Texas. They treat you like a king.

And it was lovely. Until you died. Until you died? Yeah. But even after they feed you, once they get the, wipe up the blood they feed you. That's really fun. When you do when you're a union actor, they treat you really well when you have the work. The problem is there's not that much work, or it's certainly not steady work.

And I still did a bunch of design on the side, so I didn't have to, I've never waited tables other than playing a waiter on tv which pays much better. So I was fortunate in, in, in that way. But the biggest role I did, at least money-wise, was I did a I was in Castaway with Tom Hanks.

Directed by Robert Ekka. And I replaced the original navigator. So in the crash scene this [00:18:00] guy, Jay, who I knew actually, but he had to leave, he had a commitment for a TV series up in Canada. So they had to replace him there to get a guy that looked kinda like him. And so I auditioned for it and I passed the first test.

I looked enough like him, my hair wasn't. Gray at the time or salt and pepper like it is now. But when he so I, after I passed the first round the producer took me outside and said, listen you're gonna be in the crash scene, so you're gonna be in what we call a gimbal, which is like a roller coaster for three days.

You're gonna be going like this, can you handle it? And I said, I dated a French girl for seven months. I can handle anything. And he burst out laughing and I knew I got the part. And then I called my ex-girlfriend who was French and said, thank you. And that thing still pays me. We shot that in 1999 and I still get res, I still get some from Hill Street Blues too, which was in 86.

But I get residuals are just a lovely gift. And but Castaway was [00:19:00] just crazy because at that point I was doing a lot of let's say bigger roles on television and some independent films. But my agent called and said, Hey, would you be interested in, would you be interested in working with these up and comer guys?

So Robert Ekes and Tom Hanks, and it was produced by that other little guy Steven Spielberg. So I said, yeah, I'll go ahead and do that. So once I got that, it's such a difference when you're in a big budget because you get paid very well, not as well as Tom, because as soon as I got that role, I'm in the makeup trailer and one seat away is Tom.

Making 20 million and I'm making a couple thousand. So it's really, but he was a, as nice as it can be, all of them were nice. Spielberg, it was a lovely guy and Roberts EC is lovely. So it was a really fun experience. And then after I did that and started seeing the Paychex rolling, I called my agents at any small part in a big movie, anything.

But that ended up I think, [00:20:00] being my last big role. I think the last role I did a film that was primarily Indian, produced and cast East Indian. And they, but they shot a good part of it in la so I got cast as the I think district attorney of LA and, it was hot as can be, but I think that was my last role and it was a lot of fun.

But I got cut out of the film. I'm in the credits, but I'm not on camera, so I got no residuals. And that movie had the biggest star in the world. WA was an Indian actor. Any star in India is got a billion fan. So this guy was the biggest guy in the world at the time. So that movie may have made really good money.

And I didn't make it. I got paid for the time I was there, but I didn't get any residuals from that. So that was a shame. You've been out some stuff that I've seen. I kept saying your face was familiar, but if you go, if you Google my, my, my name or a cup of tea, you'll see you, you'll see some of the Hollywood stuff.

It was funny 'cause I sometimes rent [00:21:00] my room. I have a guest room here and I sometimes rent it because this is a big tourist town for the, in, in the summer months. And there was a very unfriendly lady from Spain. I. Most of the people are lovely, but this lady, her husband was great.

He was a Scottish guy. And and she just sat and as soon as she came in and said Okay in Spanish, and so he had to translate for me, where's the dishwasher? Where's this, what time is breakfast served? And things like, and I'd say the dish the washer machine's there. Here are the instructions. I don't serve breakfast.

You go out and you get a croissant and a cup of coffee like the rest of the people, and I don't do this. And she was just really nasty. I said, oh my gosh, I have my first princess in the, a couple days later we had this it was a Saturday. We have a huge very famous market day. So the main street is just filled with all kinds of vendors and stuff.

And I hear behind me mark, and I turn around and it's this woman who's now smiling from ear to ear. [00:22:00] And I'm like, what is up with that? And she goes, I knew you from somewhere. I need to have a picture with you. So I have no idea how she recognized me, but she recognized me from something.

Yeah. My brain kept at both times. We've talked now, so when we did the fifth, the, the meeting to set this up. Yeah. I, the whole time I'm sitting there I think I recognize his face. I don't know. You may from something sp, I also look like a lot of people, let's let, but that's why I moved here. To get away from all that celebrity stuff. Yeah. Had to escape. I'm not one of those people who's gonna start stalking you now. That's, and every time I go to the grocery store, because I use my American credit card, I have to sign. So I always say, oh, you want my autograph?

And they're like, oh sure. Whatever. Just sign, pay for your groceries and get outta here. So they have no idea what I'm talking about. Okay. So we're gonna switch over to do the mental health side. And I wanted to go over ways to [00:23:00] support

things. Sorry, I'm not. So I wanted to go over balancing caregiving with having probably, with having other things. So you want your wife, so it's balancing caregiving in life while there is that stuff going on. Because for a lot of people, they can get bogged down into the, I have to do this, I have to do that.

I can't do this with this person because I have to do this here. I can't ever leave the house because I have to be right here. And there are ways to find balance. There are. Things you can do. And I felt that maybe you would be able to talk more about some of those ways because of, what you went through with your mom.

My mom it is not, was not the best mom, but she was an actual pain in the neck who would call you into her room every five seconds for absolutely no reason. So getting [00:24:00] anything done and setting up any kind of boundaries wasn't possible with her until she went to visit my sisters and came back going.

Nobody would help me there. You are so much more helpful. I went, oh, wait a minute. That means I am doing way too much and I can probably step back and let you do some of this stuff yourself, because if you survived this three weeks you were in Maryland without all the crap I did for you and nobody else doing them, then that means, yeah, you don't really need those things.

So that was my wake up call that kind of went. Yeah, this isn't healthy. You can step back and some people maybe don't have that switch flipped in their head because nothing is, not everybody gets that stark contrast of, oh, she went to visit somebody and when she comes back it was, oh, you're the best at doing this.

Wait, what? Yeah.[00:25:00]

So what are some of the things you did to not get too drawn in? I know that you have to take care of the person. That's not what I mean. Yeah. I'm not saying don't care for the person. I'm saying. How did you step back from, things happening? In order to, preserve the happy way you wanted to help your mom leave.

If that makes sense. Yeah. The balancing is not easy. I was pretty lucky but I would have to put her in her place. That was why I had that little discussion when we started. I said, I will now be in charge because your life is in my hands, and at this point I know better.

And so there, there'd be a few times where she did things and I said, you gotta stop. She had beautiful long nails. She was a nail model in her late teens and early twenties. And these things were lethal weapons at this point because she was scratching like crazy and drawing blood. I had to trim [00:26:00] those things, but boy, that was like giving up the crown jewels.

I had to do a little bit at a time. But I had to be firm about it because but I again, we worked out a compromise. I said, okay, let me, I'm just take a little bit off this day. And then, and slowly but surely I got them down to I guess non-lethal length. But sometimes I had to be stern.

There were a couple of moments that I I'm not proud of, but. Again, she was like a stubborn little kid. I did all the cooking and and cleaning and all the chores and all that business and taking care of all our personal hygiene and all that business. And sometimes, you don't get any appreciation.

And so I cooked her dinner one night and I always cooked really nice, healthy meals and she refused to eat it. And she couldn't tell me why she just shut down. That was part of her I guess depression rearing its ugly head. And so I said, listen, I do all this stuff for you, and I went down the list of all the things and I said, you have to show some appreciation.

I need you to keep up your strength for your health. You need [00:27:00] to keep up your strength. You need to eat that meal. Then she refused. And so I flicked off the light in anger and then I went down to the basement to take out my frustration on the innocent load of laundry. And so after I jammed the laundry and it turned it on, slammed the lid down and went back upstairs for Dr round two.

And I flicked the lights on and my mother's sitting there at the she was in a wheelchair at this point. And she's sitting at the table. Her hands are folded in her lap. Her plate is clean and the utensils are placed neatly on, on the plate, and she ate in the dark. And it just killed me. And I just leaned in and said, thank you.

I didn't know what to say to her, but it's one of those moments, where the parents like this, say, this will hurt me more than it hurts you. And it, and she got me. And that, I think that's the only time that. No, it wasn't. There was another time I actually broke a salad bowl. So yeah that's where the stress relief comes through.

And then I made a joke about it because my brother happened to walk in [00:28:00] just when. Everything was scattering around the kitchen floor. And I turned to my mother. I said, did you see what David did? He had no idea what he was walking into, but she knew later on when I was repairing something, I said, you remember what happened here?

She goes, I have no idea. So I took that as forgiveness. But it's tough. The pros say you, you must take breaks. And part of that I think stems from, on the airplane they say, if there's an issue, put your oxygen mask on first and then attend to your child or your loved one. And that's true because if you're not in good condition, you can't help them as, as best as you should be able to.

So you have to keep in good shape. You have to eat well and do what you can. While I was there I actually. I wanted to return dignity to her, but also to her surroundings. So I first, I bought her a new wardrobe. If you want to cheer up anybody at any age, a new wardrobe will do it, and that certainly helped.

But then I started renovating our [00:29:00] house since my mom slept a lot during the day, like a baby. I had time to do things, so I would I bought a baby monitor so I could watch her wherever I was in the house, and I renovated the entire house. During my time there as well. And the first part I did was the basement.

So I actually put in like a man cave, a gym for stress relief because I knew I needed that be because of the pros and because it creeps up on you. And there were, I think it, a couple of those emotional outbursts from me came from just the stress and it builds up and. When my little sister and I were taking care of my mother, when this whole thing started with hospice, we knew hospice was there.

So we took breaks. Took walks around our town and stuff like that. But when I took it on, I said, I'm a guy. I can handle this. No, no big deal. And then boom, once in a while something would happen. But then I actually had a medical issue where I, my mother almost outlived me, which was not cool.

So I had to go in for an emergency [00:30:00] surgery and I had an infection in my body, and they said if you were like a day or two later, you would've been a goner because it would've gotten into the blood system. And so that was not cool. So I went through emergency surgery. Then a couple weeks later, something went wrong.

They had to do another surgery, and then eight months later, another surgery. And so they couldn't pinpoint what caused that. It was diverticulitis, but I had a puncture and that's what got infected. And so not pretty, but they said, that could be related to stress. Yeah, that, that was not a not a good thing to go through.

And but you learn from that and hopefully, I have a chapter about that in the book and hopefully some people will. Benefit from my near disaster. But yeah, take the breaks and balance it as best you can. The humor really helps 'cause she was funny. I would, I, one night I got her just about ready for bed and so you get a sponge bath in the morning and at night.

And I'm just finished up with the. The [00:31:00] baby lotion and things like that. And then I'm just about to secure her diaper and she starts peeing on me. And it's cute when a newborn pees on a new parent not when it's your 90-year-old mother. And I'm like, mom, what are you doing? I just about finished.

And she says, it's natural. And smiles, and I'm like, how can I be mad? It is natural. She couldn't hold the darn thing at this point. So I just started all over again and rolled with it. So if you can laugh at the situation or embrace the horror of it, really, it's it helps so much.

Just a second, okay. I go with him afterwards. It's not an emergency. I just need to make sure. So what about support? So I know that I had no support. The people around me were like, it's your mom, just do it. And I did not do it to the end of her life. I did it [00:32:00] for a couple years and then I moved away because I was having problems and I.

No, I was not, I cannot live, I could not, would not live with my mom anymore. It was just too much. So she ended up going somewhere else and she lived for five more years, so she was fine. Died unexpectedly, but I. It was whatever. But I know that I didn't have support and that made it a hundred times worse.

Yeah. So like I said, when my sister, when they, when she went to my sister's and didn't even ask them if they would do what I was doing for her. Because she had pressured me into doing it for her. Yeah. Then I knew that's why the light bulb went off. Then I knew, Hey wait she really just doesn't need this.

She is doing this because you'll do it. You've let her push you into it. Yeah. And so that can be a bad thing. What kind of support did you have? When you were doing that with your mom? I had five siblings two live [00:33:00] locally. My older brother was like the point man, so he was the one who hired the people who were in the house and handled the medications and the family finances and stuff like that.

So when I moved into takeover I wanted to relieve a lot of that pressure from him. So he got a nice vacation, but he would come. On every Tuesday and cook dinner and get mom ready for bed at night. So he kept in practice. So that was lovely because when I had to go through my emergency, he filled in until we found someone else who could.

My brother who lived about a mile away was not comfortable doing any hands-on, which is fine. You gotta do what you really feel you can handle. But he handle he helped with the chores. Snow plowed in the winter and help with the garden and stuff like that in the summer, and would certainly come in and stay with my mother and keep her company.

But n none of the caregiving stuff. My younger sister when she had five kids of her own, but whenever she came in from Michigan, she jumped right in and helped out, which was lovely. I [00:34:00] had to go to every few months out to LA to handle the business. And when I did that, I had a sister who also lived in California, so she would swap out with me and but she had a limit.

She said she had a seven day limit. With her mother and 'cause she was the number one child. And I think that my sisters admitted that my mother was a lot tougher on the girls. So she had three girls and three guys, and I was the youngest guy, so I probably got away with murder compared to the other two.

And so I was very fortunate. And then my other sister lived at the Jersey Shore and she was also hands off, but she would cook. Bring soups up and she was like a little Martha Stewart. She would make blankets with pockets and nice little and bring mom toys and stuff like that. So she knew how to keep mom happy and stuff with those kinds of things.

So I was very fortunate in that. And as I'm finding out too, we had some really, my parents had great neighbors. I just did a, yesterday or the day before, I did a virtual author visit at the public [00:35:00] library of my hometown in New Jersey, and there were a bunch of people that zoomed in. I think we had about 30 people there, and I couldn't tell everybody who was on, but I received an email from our next door neighbor.

The next day and she said, I couldn't speak and I didn't want you to see me 'cause I was crying the whole time. She goes, I loved your parents so much and I was so emotional about your stories and stuff like that. And it was just lovely 'cause my parents were good people and they seemed to attract good people.

And so that helped. And I think that the way they raised us, they didn't lecture a lot, but I think they more. Yeah, probably they led by example. We watched them do the right thing and do good things for other people and be good to each other. And all my siblings are kinda like that too.

So this was second nature to us. And yeah, it, it I'm sorry you didn't have the support 'cause it, it made a huge difference. Yeah. Of course this is the same across the board. If you have a good support group, no matter what you're going through, [00:36:00] you're gonna be able to get through it with a lot more grace than if you don't.

And if you keep it to yourself and that's what the problems happen, just getting it out or even know when I had to let out a, a. My mother never swore. And I didn't pick up that trait. And I knew if I swore she was gonna be upset. So one night I guess I got frustrated and I said, listen, I'm sorry, but this parenting thing is tough.

And she said, but I never swore, and this is so a race six. And I'm like, oh my God. Goes agaiN.

you guys did do the available resources, right? Like respite care and other things when it was time to right? Not really. I took over everything. So we did have only near the very end did we call hospice when I knew she was shutting down and because of my medical issues, I couldn't do the physical.

I was before that, I was carrying her everywhere. And then we, we did road trips and things like that. I wanted to keep her [00:37:00] active. But a caregiver that we found marina was lovely and so she was very experienced. And my mother, it took about five days for her.

She didn't wanna be on Earth very long, but she took her time in dying. So there was like a five day vigil where I was with her almost the entire time, just exhausted. And Marina came in and inspected my mother and said, yes, she's going. So she knew. And so I knew that was it. And we didn't call hospice, I think, until the very end.

Because she was well cared for. She was fine. And with my dad, the same thing. He was at home and I only had eight days with him, but I was there a lot of those eight days. And we didn't call hospice to two days before he passed because he was well cared for. And when they came in to check they, they said, yeah, he's well cared for.

But he's gravely ill. We said, we know. That's why we called you. And they're like, but he's gravely ill. And we said, yes, we know. That's why we called you. We've been taking care of him. He's very happy, [00:38:00] but he's ready. And yeah, they dropped off the emergency kit, so I had to do thing.

I had to give her the morphine if she needed it. And it was funny 'cause I asked hospice. I said, look, we're running. My mother didn't have a lot of pain, but she did, we did do the morphine the last few days. And so I joked with the hospice and said, and there's, we're running outta the morphine.

You have any for the caregiver? And didn't know what to do. I said, bring over extra. 'cause it was tasted terrible, but it worked for my mom. So yeah I mean we had them come in and give us the instructions for that because as you're going through, I don't know if you've been through that. So there's all these stages of death and you have the gar, the gurgling, and then you have the fish outta water.

And that's when you know the stages of actual death are happening. And I had to be aware of what to do when those steps happened the gurgling is bad even, I said, we've gotta stop this is not comfortable for her. And the hospice nurse that was looking, she says, it's more uncomfortable for you [00:39:00] than it is for her.

I said, that's not acceptable. We've gotta stop this gurgling. And so they tried some things and then finally they sent over some medication that seemed to work, but. Yeah, you don't wanna see your loved one suffering in, in, in any way. And so when you hear those sounds and it goes, the body doesn't wanna die the body tries to fight it until the end for the most part.

And so there's some little strange things that happen as they transition. Yeah, I did not have to go through that. I was not living in the same state as my mom when she died. And she was, she didn't get any of that because. Okay, so the reason why I did care for my mom is she had a brain tumor.

And at the time that I was doing stuff for her, it was growing, but they ended up doing like something, radiation or whatever to try to shrink it a little bit 'cause it was in a place that it couldn't be operated on. And then, like I said, about five years later, she was living with two of my sisters in [00:40:00] Maryland and just didn't wake up one morning.

So yeah, there was no signs that she was going to, it was just she didn't wake up one morning. Yeah. It's sad, that might be the better way to go. When my dad had heart disease, so that's a horrible, it may be different now, but this was like over 25 years ago. It was like a seven year death sentence, and he just got worse and worse.

And he was a very strict Catholic. And during those last eight days, he said, I used to feel sorry for people who died in plane crashes or in a car wreck. He said boy, I think that's the way to go. Go fast. 'cause he goes, this is horrible. And and it was horrible to witness that.

And it's a shame. Yeah. It's, life can be cruel at some point, yeah. Do you have anything else that I missed that you wanted to talk about? I'll tell you one, one interesting thing with this [00:41:00] book. Be besides I originally wanted to write it to record family history 'cause I was privy to a lot of really.

Fun moments and some really interesting conversations that I didn't want the other family members to miss. So I just started writing all that kinda stuff down. When I wrote the book, I wrote the book in this room. This is my office. I needed some emotional space. I couldn't write it right away.

And but I had notes and whenever I was inspired I jotted down things and I took a lot of photographs. And a lot of videos and things like that. And so when I got here and I had time to really reflect, I started writing. And so if you read the story and this, there's a lot of funny stuff in the book.

There's, I don't call it a how to book. I call what I did book. And if you get some benefit, great. If nothing else, you're gonna be entertained because we had a lot of fun. She was a funny lady. And my writings kinda. Very conversational and fun. But if you look at the story, I think originally or read it, it seems like I went and rescued my mother.

And in a [00:42:00] sense I did. I didn't think of it as a big deal. I just thought it was the right thing to do. But so the book was released on Mother's Day in 2023, and it, I couldn't do, I wanted to do the audio book, but I emotionally couldn't do it for a long time, so I had to. Drawing all my acting training and skills.

And about six months later, I built a studio here and did the audio book. Between those, the six months, I had time to reflect and look at the book because now I'm looking at the book in a whole new lens to do it vocally and I made some changes and things like that and updates. But upon the reflection, I think my mother rescued me.

And that was the new perspective because at that point I did some pretty good things in life, but nothing that was really that meaningful, I did some acting and I did some design. I did some good things, but this was the best thing I did. And. My mother gave me that opportunity.

Whe whether she meant to or not, she gave me that [00:43:00] opportunity. And luckily I took it and it was as an actor, it was the best role I ever played. And no matter how difficult it was, I wouldn't have traded that experience for the world. And yeah, so that, that was a very interesting thing to look at it after some time to reflect on it.

And I certainly thank my mother for that and I thank for the thank her and my dad for the upbringing because that all played a big part in this thing. Okay. Thank you for coming on my podcast. It's been wonderful. I think you're the most famous person I've had on my podcast. Okay, let's not go that far if you're, oh my God, I haven't worked, I haven't worked in whatever. Oh, I don't even remember the last one. Probably 2012 I think was the last rule.

I did save a girl from a murder conviction. What was that? Saved at 17, something like that. A 17-year-old girl was framed by, by one of those nasty girls in high school, and I got her [00:44:00] off. So she, that was my last job as an attorney. I saved a girl for wrongful convictions. Fantastic. Anyway, so I thank you.

This is it's always fun to, to share these stories. I think people would get a kick out of the book and, and it keeps my mom in the present and for me, that's a gift. So I thank you for that.