I had this kind of choice often. My kids weren’t in sports but they were in music. They had school functions and they had awards ceremonies and they had teacher conferences. When my aunt was lying on her deathbed in the hospital, my parents were still in fairly good shape. They were sitting with my aunt. I had to leave to attend my oldest son’s first band concert. How could I miss that?
Yet, I thought all the way through, “What if Auntie Marion dies while I’m here?” I’ve since learned that we have to make painful choices and live with them. My bottom line is this: what would my aunt have wanted me to do, if she could have told me? I knew her well enough to know she would have wanted me to go to my son’s band concert. That knowledge made it easier, though certainly not easy. Hard choices are the hallmark of the sandwich generation.