Twenty years as a Senior Living Expert, sitting with families in the hardest moments of their lives. Knowing every question to ask. Every room to navigate. Every conversation people dreaded having. And then I lived it myself. Twice.

My late husband was diagnosed with cancer. At the same time, my aging parents needed more of me than my calendar had room for. I was holding three families at once, theirs, my parents', and my own, while trying to protect a career I had spent twenty years building.

I walked away from two VP positions I had earned. Once for my husband. Once for my parents. My son was not even a teenager yet. There was never a question about what mattered most.

But I also know what it costs. Not just personally. Professionally. And I know I was not alone in that cost, I just could not find anyone talking about it.

That did not break my expertise. It completed it.