The answer to Erica Brown’s question, “can we make a nicer sandwich” is no. (“Makes A Nice Sandwich Generation,” April 6)
The struggle involved is part of the personal journey through that metaphorical desert that is filled with hardship, sometimes pain and occasional glimpses of joy. It is a journey that countless “sandwich generations” have made and countless more will continue to make. Keep in mind those many survivors who lost their parents before they ever reached the age of infirmity. Sadly, they did not have the opportunity to share time with elderly parents. Theirs was a more difficult journey to make.
“Who takes care of the caregivers, the tired, neglected souls?” Brown asks. They themselves do. You nurture yourself while nurturing others. “Can we bring more spiritual and emotional attention to the sandwich generation?” We can tap into our own inner emotional and spiritual resources. Find strength and energy and resilience and purpose and most of all love when it isn’t easy to do. Many of us have.
The journey can be a lonely one. The message of the charoset mixed with the bitter herbs, Brown so rightly points out, is that there is always some sweetness mixed in with the bitterness. Yes, it is a complicated mix, the mix that lies between two layers of the matzah sandwich we are directed to eat on Passover, but it’s important to remember that all of us sitting around the communal table will, in one way or another, have to share in its taste.
Jamaica, NY
