HALO — Honoring Aging Loved Ones & Ourselves — was born from a deeply personal experience with family caregiving.

Over the past several years, I began the unexpected journey of caring for an aging loved one, my aunt, my father’s older sister, a responsibility shared with my brother and my sister. She never married and never had children, yet she helped raise us. Her influence shaped my love of culture and travel, and my ambition to build a corporate career.

When she moved from Mexico City to Mérida to begin a new chapter near my brother, it felt hopeful. Then the pandemic hit.

Like many older adults, she experienced profound isolation. What began as simple check-in calls became more intentional. I started scheduling evening Zoom meditations so she wouldn’t feel alone. From California, I worried when her routine “good morning” messages didn’t arrive. Distance amplified the anxiety that long-distance caregiving often brings.

Slowly, I realized I was no longer just her niece. I was becoming one of her caregivers.

As time passed, we began noticing changes like confusion with medication, repeated conversations, and growing fear of being alone. The woman who once remembered everything was beginning to forget.

And with that came a realization I wasn’t prepared for: as her memory faded, a part of my own story faded with it.

Family caregiving is rarely just logistical. It is emotional, layered, and often overwhelming. It involves decision-making, family dynamics, anticipatory grief, and the invisible pressure of holding everything together, especially for those in the sandwich generation balancing careers, children, and aging parents.

Through my work with executive coaching clients navigating similar transitions with aging parents and loved ones, I began to see that this experience was not isolated. The same themes surfaced again and again: overwhelm, silent exhaustion, complex family dynamics, and a lack of spaces to process the emotional weight of caregiving.

It became clear that we need to open a conversation about the messy, heartbreaking, and beautiful journey of caring for aging loved ones, and to create intentional spaces where caregivers can support one another.

HALO was created to hold that conversation.

Because honoring aging loved ones must also include honoring ourselves.