For many months, I puzzled over why I couldn’t cry over my dad’s dementia. I even googled “why can’t I cry” to diagnose my condition, my inability to grieve the disappearance of his logic and memory.

My mom says when a loved one dies of a heart attack or in a car crash, the trauma is compacted. But our family’s grief was spread over many years. Dad seemed to unlearn a new word every day. He forgot the names of his children and grandkids. Maybe because the loss was gradual, I did not cry.

I recently broke my tearless streak while helping my dad move into his new place, a memory-care unit where he’ll be tended to by nurses and aides, not my mom. I hadn’t felt this way since the first day I dropped off my oldest child at day care. Uncertainty and guilt overwhelmed me. Would he make new friends? What if he hurt himself, and my mom and I weren’t around to help?

Dad is 80, which is the age the oldest baby boomers will turn in 2026. Millions of families like mine are entering a season they were never quite prepared for: moving parents out of homes they swore they’d never leave, navigating waitlists and hospital discharges, and absorbing the emotional cost of watching someone fade away. Dementia is a long goodbye, and coping with it is complicated by an already strained eldercare system.

Members of a sandwich generation caring for young children as well as for aging parents are reckoning with our new reality. I was not ready for the headaches and heartache of navigating my father’s needs.

If Dad were still cogent and strong, we would have had to blindfold and hog-tie him to uproot him from his suburban townhouse. My mom and I toured a half-dozen assisted living centers, preparing for them to make the move together. But while they were waitlisted for an apartment in their price range, Dad fell, sending him to the hospital and accelerating our search for a more restricted care facility. The first several places we sought were full.

From feeding Dad applesauce to helping with his toileting, caregiving is still in my muscle memory. It was just a handful of years ago that I was doing the same for my younger son. There is something both poignant and heartbreaking about having to do it again so soon for your parent.

“Why did you have kids so late?” my 8-year-old asked me after visiting my dad in the hospital. (I gave birth to him when I was 39.) If we had started earlier, my kid reasoned, he could have had more time to spend with his A-Gong.

In his prime, Dad was gregarious and personable. He grew up working at his father’s “Chinese hand laundry” outside Chicago, ironing shirts for white businessmen who took the train to work downtown. I’m a terrible ironer. A couple of summers ago, I brought Dad a laundry basket of my wrinkled linen shorts and twisted-up button-downs. Even though he had Alzheimer’s by then, his body leapt into action. He slapped the bottom of the iron to make sure it was hot and proceeded to press my collars to stiff perfection.

Like most dads, he liked to feel useful for his children.

That also extended to imparting lessons in thrift. His life hacks always involved saving a dollar, without shame. On family outings to Old Country Buffet, he made my brother and me lie about our ages for the cheaper price. At McDonald’s, he made sure to grab a stack of napkins that he dutifully stored in the glove compartment.

As his vocabulary failed him, sometimes his obsession with scrimping would reveal itself in hilarious ways. My mom said during a Minnesota snowfall, my dad peered out the window and excitedly pointed to all the “money” falling from the sky.

But most days were humorless, with him staring vacantly in silence. My mom also needed relief from the demands of 24-7 caregiving.

On Dad’s first day at his new place, I joined him for lunch in the dining hall. I wasn’t prepared for how bleak it would feel. Strange smells emanated from the room. Dad was seated between two residents slumped over in their chairs.

One woman opened her eyes and began chatting about her life in Iowa — about the horse she rode and the parades that drew the whole town. I got the sense that she still believed she lived there.

This made me ache, knowing my dad would likely spend his final days in a place filled with confusion. Surely he would feel lonely here. He didn’t say a word.

Suddenly he perked up and told the woman, randomly, “Yeah. Me, too.” His speech staggered. He offered a few words that made no sense to me.

She nodded in understanding. They connected in their shared language.

My brain knew this was what was best for him. It’s just that my heart needed this moment, so I could finally let go. By then, I couldn’t stop the tears.

My mom and I said goodbye to Dad, promising we’d come back the next day.

Back in my car, I searched high and low for a tissue. Nothing. Then I remembered one of Dad’s hacks. I popped open the glove compartment, where a generous stack of free napkins was waiting patiently for me.

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