The unseen cost of caregiving takes centre stage in Sherri-Lee Lawler’s memoir
holding on, letting go Sherri-Lee Lawer shares her journey through caregiving
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Caregivers are often expected to keep going quietly in the background, showing up, holding everything together and giving endlessly to the people they love, even when it comes at a cost to themselves.
In Holding On, Letting Go: A Caregiver’s Memoir of Love, Loss, and Dream-Woven Reflections, author Sherri-Lee Lawler brings that often unseen experience into focus, using her own journey caring for her mother during her battle with cancer to highlight the emotional labour, sacrifice and loneliness that can define the role.
While the memoir is deeply personal, it also speaks to a wider truth about caregiving: those who are looking after loved ones are often so consumed with giving that they neglect themselves in the process. For Lawler, that was one of the clearest lessons to emerge from caring for her mother.
“In giving, you also have to give to yourself as well. I wasn’t doing that much because you put yourself on the back burner and forget that you need to cater to yourself as well, to be able to be the best version of yourself,” she said.
That reflection sits at the heart of the book. Holding On, Letting Go does not shy away from the reality that caregiving can demand everything from a person emotionally, mentally and physically, while offering very little room for rest or recovery. It is an act of love, but also one that can leave caregivers depleted and unseen.
At the same time, Lawler says the experience revealed the depth of her love for her mother and the strength she had to find within herself to keep going.
“It taught me how much love I really have for her, and it taught me resilience,” she said.
That resilience, however, did not make the journey any less painful. One of the most difficult parts of caregiving, Lawler explains, was confronting how much was outside of her control.
In the book, the idea of “letting go” becomes one of its most powerful themes, not as giving up, but as accepting the limits of what love and effort can change.
“Letting go, I had to learn that it is an act of love. As a caregiver, you are out of control, and sometimes there are things you can’t control,” she said.
For Lawler, that meant accepting the things no amount of care, hope, or determination could alter.
“I couldn’t control the diagnosis or the progression of the disease nor my mother’s emotions,” she said.
Instead, she had to learn to release the expectation that doing everything possible would necessarily lead to the outcome she wanted most.
“Letting go of the control of the outcome, knowing you are doing your best even though outcomes can be not what you expected, and the hardest and last part, which is letting go of the person,” she explained.
It is a painful truth that many caregivers will recognise. When someone you love is ill, care is so often rooted in hope that treatment will work, that things will improve, that your effort will somehow change the ending.
The reality that love and devotion do not always guarantee healing is one of the most devastating parts of the caregiving experience, and one that Lawler addresses with honesty in her memoir.
Another thread running through the book is the loneliness of caregiving. Even when surrounded by doctors, family members and daily responsibilities, the role can be deeply isolating. Much of the emotional burden is carried privately, and caregivers are often left to process fear, exhaustion and anticipatory grief on their own.
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