The Long Pull
Rowing, caregiving, and what it means to stay with what doesn’t end quickly
I recently started rowing again.
I rowed crew in college and loved the sport. In fact, it was one of my top criteria for choosing a college. Did it have a crew team? Along with a strong English department and a pre-med program? If the school checked those boxes, it made the list.
I eventually found The One and entered college with dreams of becoming a doctor, rowing crew, and continuing to study language, writing, and books.
Pre-med didn’t work out. Organic chemistry took me down quickly, wiping the doctor vision off my vision board.
But the others stuck.
I graduated with a major in English with a creative writing emphasis. I rowed crew for four years. I studied abroad in London. And over the years since graduating, I have continued to row on and off.
Several years before he died, my father bought a rowing machine, the kind with a container of water so that when you row, it sounds like you’re pushing your oars through water. I wasn’t sure if he ever used it, but my mom confirmed that, oh yeah, your dad did row. He had it outside on the porch until it was too cold, and then he brought it inside and used it in the front hall. He loved the sound of the water moving as he rowed.
I like that sound too. Unlike walking or biking or swimming or any other form of exercise, rowing is its own thing. People who row crew have a certain je ne sais quoi. First of all, there’s the rhythm of moving through the water, sliding on the seat, pulling and then releasing the oar.
Then there’s the camaraderie that forms when you’re in a four or an eight. Outside of Tacoma, Washington, where my crew team practiced, my boatmates and I became one unit, all moving in unison as we glided around American Lake.
When we weren’t on the water, that rhythm continued in the weight room, the student union building, even classes. We stayed on campus together during spring break while just about everyone else flew off to southern California or Arizona or Mexico, further strengthening our bond.
These are the memories I have now when I get on the rowing machine dad left behind and mom is napping in the other room. Rowing is one of the many through lines of my life and lately, I’ve been thinking about what stays with us through the years, along with what we pay attention to, and what we don’t.
I am watching my mother slowly die, an experience I didn’t see coming, and one nothing could have prepared me for. Every day I’m in the thick of caregiving duties: making sure she’s safe and comfortable and fed and dressed and clean. Making sure she knows I love her. Making sure she can find Law and Order or Blue Bloods reruns or one of the British shows she likes to watch on Acorns, using the Apple remote, which is one of the worst designs ever. Making sure she gets her proper medication and supplements, that she’s hydrated, that she’s paying her bills on time. Making sure she can log in to her iPad where her daily jigsaw puzzle apps await her eagle eye.
Nothing can prepare you for watching the slow decline of a parent or a loved one.
My father went fast. One day he was sitting in his chair, reading one of his books. The next, he was being carried down the front stairs and loaded into an ambulance. Within two weeks, he was gone. His last days were spent in a hospital bed on a ventilator, hooked up to a morphine drip. We speculate that once he got the diagnosis that he had an aggressive form of leukemia, he decided that was it. That he was done and let go.
In those two weeks between diagnosis and death, Mom sat by his bedside and held his hand, looked at him, and told him stories. Science suggests that people can hear what we’re saying even if they aren’t conscious or responding back. I like to believe that.
I like to believe my father knew my mom was there, that I was there, that my brother was there, because believing otherwise is just too depressing and sad.
Rowing on a machine is not the same as rowing on the water in a boat with seven other women and a coxswain. Still, it’s as meditative a movement as they come. It’s easy to get lost in the back-and-forth of pulling the flywheel and pushing with your legs, the sound of the water swishing in the container, unlike a Concept2 rowing machine that is simply a flywheel.
The machine my father bought reflects his love of water and boats, particularly small wooden boats and sailboats. And he loved that his daughter rowed crew.
The first—and only—boat he ever made for me was a small rowboat. There are pictures in some album in the attic of me in that rowboat as a sixteen-year-old, and again as a seventeen-year-old. Before I ever stepped foot into an eight shell, I was already forming my connection to being on the water, using oars to move myself from one point to another.
But it was never really about the destination. I simply loved being out in the boat. And yes, it was fun when our boat won a regatta. I still have the ribbons and medals I won in a box somewhere. But to be honest, it was the daily rituals and routines of practice that mattered most, whether on an erg, in the weight room, running the stadium stairs in downtown Tacoma, or out on American Lake running drills—long distance and sprints—hearing my coach yell through her megaphone at us.
Go faster!
You guys look great!
You got this!
When you’re in the throes of caregiving, you don’t have somebody moving alongside you, cheering you on, encouraging you to keep going, telling you you’re strong. It’s a solitary act, for the most part. And, like rowing, it is an act of commitment and, more importantly, devotion.
On particularly challenging days, I tell myself I’ll never regret making this decision to care for my mom. And I can also say that I won’t miss it either.
I won’t miss seeing her barely able to walk.
I won’t miss hearing her wince in pain every time she moves her legs because arthritis in her knees is so bad and she has AV Necrosis in her right hip.
I won’t miss asking her to repeat herself because she spoke too softly or slurred her words.
I won’t miss her choking because Parkinson’s makes swallowing challenging.
I won’t miss finding her sitting on the toilet with her hands covered in her own feces because she can’t wipe properly and her stool was loose.
I won’t miss her inhaling her tea instead of drinking it and not being able to breathe.
I won’t miss wondering if she will be awake when I check on her in the morning.
I won’t miss trying to navigate America’s ineffective and inhumane healthcare system as I set up appointments and look for reliable, trustworthy respite care.
I won’t miss the constant barrage of pharmaceutical ads running between segments of Law and Order reruns, or David Muir’s nightly news, or Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.
I won’t miss seeing fear in her eyes when she talks about the future, wondering if she will get another summer at our lake house.
I won’t miss carrying this load alone.
I will miss the woman who gave me life.
I will miss her spirit.
Her unwavering optimism about the future.
Her love for me and my brother and her four grandchildren and friends.
Her love for my dad.
The day will come when I miss her.
In many ways, I already do.
This piece captures something profound about endurance that most people miss. The parallel between rowing's repetitive rhythm and caregiving's daily demands isn't just poetic but reveals a deeper truth about sustained commitment without visible finish lines. I cared for my grandmother through dementia and found similar solace in routine physical activity. The part about not having a coach yelling encouragement realy hit me because thats exactly what makes caregiving so isolating even when surrounded by people.