The Lone Ranger was my favorite television show when I was a boy. I had constant childhood fantasies of rescuing someone in distress. I wanted so much to be useful, helpful, needed. My fantasies ended with the rescue, and never went on to public accolades or the gratitude of the victim. I just wanted to do great good. While I had friends, I always lived pretty much within myself as I grew up. And after I grew up, too.

When I was nineteen years old, I married a strong woman who had a solid sense of self-reliance; Linda rarely needed me to rescue her. Linda and I raised a similarly self-reliant daughter, Meredith. I mostly focused my helpful attentions outward, on my work. I spent my career trying to do great good for my clients and for the people I worked with.

In my twenties, in therapy, I learned a psychology called Transactional Analysis. It taught that Rescuing (with a capital “R”) was a bad thing; it tended to Victimize people. The definition of Rescuing (with a capital “R”) is giving help to people who have what they need to get along without the help. I learned that Rescuers tend to feel like Victims before long. And, sometimes, Rescuers get tired of the Victims always around them, and end up hurting them instead of helping them. I tried to mend my ways… to stop Rescuing. I learned that psychology so well that I ended up making a living teaching it for many years.

When I partnered with Meredith to serve full time as Linda’s Caregiver for the last month of her life, I did not feel I was being a Rescuer. I felt I was being a loving servant. It felt good. It felt as good as – or better than – the work I had been doing in my career and in my business.

That’s why I volunteered to share my life with Linda’s 95 year-old mother, to bring her to a new home in New Mexico and to care for her. That’s why I jumped at the opportunity to be Corinne’s Caregiver.