Ep. 315 - Mark Porro

Mark Porro is the author of "A Cup of Tea on the Commode," which chronicles his unexpectedly humorous experiences as a caregiver for his aging mother. Through candid storytelling, he reveals the emotional challenges and delightful moments that come with elder care, emphasizing the importance of humor and empathy.

Connect with Mark across all socials @A Cup of Tea on the Commode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to the On Purpose podcast. What's Up? Everybody?
Welcome to this week's edition to the On Purpose Podcast,
where it is our mission to inspire, motivate, remind, reflect,
get your thinking, get your listening, get your question, maybe
even getting you curious about what life's all about about,

(00:22):
What that moment you're about to interact in is what
it's all about. What am I being tested? What am
I supposed to teach? What am I supposed to learn?
And I want thank you for being here. Without you,
we can't get this done. Over six years every Thursday
showing up today's episode three hundred and fifteen, which is
super humbling to realize, like we have the longevity in

(00:43):
the space and the trust of you all to keep
showing up. So I want to thank you for being here.
This week, I'm excited to sit down with Mark Poro,
and author of A Cup of Tea on the Commode,
which is a deeply personal and surprisingly humorous memoir about
the journey as a caregiver for his aging mother. Mark's
storytelling blend's honesty with and heartfelt reflection, offering an intimate

(01:08):
look at the realities of elder care, the challenges sacrifices
and unexpected moments of joy. What struck me about Mark
when I came across his author biography and the book
title is We're to age in life where a lot
of our parents are starting to require care, and our

(01:30):
parents have already cared for their parents. So when we
got to see the emotional toll, it took on them
how much they sacrifice to be there. And quite honestly,
for me, a lot of times I question would I
do that? Would I give up that much time in
my life, that much energy and stuff to be there?
And I thought, what a great way to reflect on
that question I have for myself is to sit down

(01:51):
with Mark and understand his journey and maybe even ask
him what do you do it again? If he had
to do it all over again. So I want to
thank you all for being here, and before we get
to our interview, our conversation with Mark Porow, I want
to remind you please get over, like, subscribe, share on
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(02:12):
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to reach more people, to put more smiles on people's
faces around the world with your help. So please like, subscribe, share, comment,

(02:36):
let us know what you're getting out of these interviews
and these conversations. And this week I'm excited to bring
you author Mark Poro, so enjoy the conversation. Honor the
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(02:58):
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(03:20):
your service. Visit Honor the Brave dot Com. We've got
your six Mark, my newest friend, Welcome to the on
Purpose podcast. How you doing today?

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Thank you? I'm great, and it's it's good to be here.
We're recording from the South of France, which is what
I don't want your pity. Someone has to suffer here.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Yeah, that's funny. So we my wife and I just
made it back from Florida, where we spent most of winter,
so we're back up in beautiful Wyoming, so kind of
the opposite of the South of France.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yeah, well it's still beautiful. That's the most important part.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah, I ain't going to complain about it that you
and I are going to sit down and have a
conversation about your book a cup of tea on the
commode and which you talk about caring for your mom,
because we are actually right outside my mother in law's house,
caring kind of helping her prepare for the next stage
in life as she moves from her lifelong house and
the one that my wife was raised in into a

(04:19):
more suitable apartment for this this stage in life. So
I'm excited to get your insights and your wisdom and
enjoy some last with you.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
Mark hopefully.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I appreciate you being here and
I want to thank you for sharing your story. And
I love when people find the value in their own story.
They don't get caught up in comparing their story to
everybody else's and realize that when we share our stories,
we can impact so many people that are maybe looking
for that story, didn't realize they even needed that story,

(04:51):
and it finds them right yeah yeaheah.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
What was interesting with mine? You know, I never obviously
you push the the inevitable office as much as you can.
But while I was taking care of my mom, I
learned some really good tips and tricks from a hospice,
especially when this whole incident started, and they were very
generous with sharing what they knew. And and then when

(05:19):
I took over mom's care, I had a friend going
through something similar with her father, and so I shared
my experience and some of the things I learned. She
got some benefit out of it, and I said, well,
I think I got something here. You know, this is
there's we'll get into more of the reason. I think
while why I did it, but I thought that that
is definitely something that I didn't think about while jumping

(05:41):
into this adventure that it could help others. But so
far it's it's it's done a pretty good job of
doing that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
No, I'm excited to dive into the meeting potais. But
before we do that, Mark, I got to warm you up.
I got to make sure we are on the same
page here and learn a little bit more about you,
so you're ready for your warm up questions, my friend.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
I guess sure, I worked out this morning.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
That should be okay, let's well be this will be
a mental cool al for you that we'll go to
the other end. Right, If you had one word to
describe you, what would that word be.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
I'd say ambitious. Perhaps we'll go with We'll go with
that one.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Why does that come to mind? Yeah? Why does that
come to mind?

Speaker 2 (06:25):
I think because I I've done u uh And part
of it is my my my m O is I
get bored and I move on. So I've tried a
lot of things in my life and uh, I've always
like gone into with an open mind and open heart.
And UH, I have a motto it's called find the Joy.
It sounds kind of corny, but if you know, I

(06:46):
focus on the positive of any adventure, and uh, if
you focus on that, it just makes it so much easier.
So I live in the south of France. I never
thought I would be here. I came to this little
village with the next girlfriend, who always wanted to retire
in the south of France, and we came here ten
years ago to look at an investment property and I

(07:07):
fell in love with this little village. And as soon
as I found this apartment that what I'm in, I said,
that's that's going to be my home. And so I
put an offer in and they accepted it, and I
moved here a couple of years later without knowing the language.
But I've been you know, accelerating my education. It's still horrible,

(07:29):
but I get along with all my French friends here
and stuff like that. So that's that's one thing. But again,
going to a foreign country really not knowing that much
about it and coming here without really knowing anybody, and
I just said, this is going to be an adventure.
Let's make the most of it. And I've never looked back.
It's been wonderful. So the medal came through here pretty well.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
Well, that was your next warm up question. What's a
favorite quote or model that kind of guide your life.
So we got to find the joy oh that.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Would do it? Yeah, you know, I have one that
came out recently. It was very funny. So I did
a book signing here in France, and the building that
we did it in a big city about fifty miles
away from here, Montpellier, was the Nelson Mandela Building. And
I have a friend in South Africa who was good

(08:19):
friends with him. And actually, when Nelson got out of prison,
his wife wasn't ready to have him back yet full time,
so he lived with Carolyn and her husband for about
a year year and a half before he could get
back into his good graces with his wife. And I
didn't know all that before, but we met and we

(08:39):
were actors together in Los Angeles, and then she moved
back to South Africa and did very well. She married
a billionaire and who happened to be very influential and
good friends with Mandela, So that was very cool. So anyway,
the reason I brought that up is Mandela his motto,

(09:00):
or one of his famous quotes was I don't lose.
I either win or I learn. And I thought that
was fascinating and I joke about it I started five
nonprofit businesses, though none were intended to be nonprofit. But

(09:22):
with each I wouldn't say failure. But with each experience,
I took what I learned and moved it, you know,
and used it in the next one, and the next one,
the next one, and so on. So the snack food
company actually became a pretty good enterprise, but the few
things leading up to that maybe not so much.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
All right, Mark, if your life had a theme song,
what would that song be?

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Well, being from New Jersey, by law, you have to
pick up Bruce Springsteen song, but I'm not going to.
I would say Tenth Avenue Freeze Out for my Jersey friends.
But when I was working in my factory, my snack
food company, it was like a twenty four to seven business.
It ended up being almost a one man operation on
the West coast, and my brother did sales on the

(10:10):
East coast. And when i'd be let's say, at the
packing machine eight hours straight packing these Grandpa Po's originals,
I would have a soundtrack going on on my I
think it was iPod at the time, and whenever this
song came up, I got up and danced. It was
my break, and I'd say thank god nobody is here

(10:32):
to see this. But it was my break and the
song is ain't no stopping us now. And on the
dance scale, I'd say it's a ninety two. It's just great.
And yeah, so whenever I hear that song, I have good,
good memories of even though the factory work was somewhat tedious,
but that was that was a good break song, and

(10:55):
it's a happy song.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Here you go. It's a favorite book or a book
you currently reading. Either one.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Okay, if I had to pick, I have to were
father Son's stories, but I'll just go with Shoeless Joe
was written by W. P. Kinsella, and that inspired the
Field of Dreams. Yeah. Though I had a good relationship
with my dad as an adult, we had some contentious times,

(11:24):
especially around baseball. He was a baseball coach and I
was a kid who hated practice, and so that that
story I love, and I took my dad to that
Field of Dreams actually when he came out to visit
me in La and at that time that the movie
had been out for several months. So we're in the
Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard with maybe three other people.

(11:47):
This enormous theater and the ending, if you remember the
ending where he actually got to throw play catch with
his dad for the first time. I got to have
a d I never saw my dad cry before, and
I believe he cried at that ending, and he knew
why I wanted to take him there. So have you been?

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Have you been out the Dyersville to visit it yet?

Speaker 2 (12:13):
No? Let your picture? No? Did you?

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah? Yeah? We actually yeah, we went there and spent
the afternoon same thing as always a bucket list deal,
and we were traveling across Iowa and we just googled
it and we ended up being fairly close. So we
went out and my my wife and I and our
little dog had to catch in the outfield.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Oh cool, Yeah, that's that's that's pretty cool. And I
have some people that I actor friends that I knew
that were in that so okay, had a chance.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
But no, all right, final warm up question mark, you
get to have dinner with one person, who would you
want to have dinner with them? What would you want
to ask them?

Speaker 2 (12:50):
I may get in trouble with this one, so I
would I would have dinner with the Virgin Mary and
really get the scuddle bite on that whole.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
That's a great one. I love you. You would come up,
you would definitely know some answers that might shake some things.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Oh man, all right, I gotta tell you, Mark, that
might be the funniest answer I've ever gotten there and
definitely was not one i'd expected.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
Oh good, Okay, Well, we like surprises.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
Yeah, all right. So as I was preparing for this,
I found a clip from you on another episode that
another show that I really enjoyed, and it was talked
about you taking your mom in for a mental test
and they she couldn't remember some questions and a doctor's like, oh,
we think you have early Alzheimer's and you were like,
come on, doc, I don't remember half of this stuff.

(13:43):
And I loved the humor you brought to what can
be a heavy stage in life. So talk to us
about that journey for you and how did you get
involved and when did you know that humor was going
to be something you would use to make your days better.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Well, both of my parents were pretty funny people, and
so we grew up with a lot of humor in
the house, and there was some stress and tens. They
had a pretty contentious marriage for a while. They were
a Catholic couple that were going to be married until
they you know, death to they part. But there were
some issues, and I think that what was good for us.
I think the six kids, we all got a lot

(14:23):
closer and there was no abuse or anything like that,
but occasionally there were some heated arguments and stuff like that.
So humor was a big deal for us. And and
my parents. I never heard them talk about pain or
or their their problems really anything other than let's say,

(14:46):
maybe some financial things at some issue, because my mother
was a chopoholic, though she worked full time made her
own money. My dad was a chemist and he was
concerned with six kids on a chemist's salary and a
chopoholic wife. But she worked full time to make our
own money to pay for our own shopping, so that
that actually worked out okay. But they were both funny,

(15:07):
and my siblings are all kind of kookie in their
own way. And so humor always is part of my
life no matter what I do, and so especially in
stressful situations, if you can crack a joke, that that
helps relieve a lot of the stress intention and maybe
in certain certain circumstances, So when my mom first So

(15:33):
at this time, I'm a carefree bachelor living in Los Angeles.
I had no kids, was never married, and I had
my snack food business. But my acting career was kind
of winding down. And so I get a call from
my brother saying Mom just shut down and the doctor
cut off all meds and food, and hospice was called.
And that was like, we know what happens with hospice,

(15:55):
because fourteen years earlier we called hospice for my dad.
In two days later he died, so we all flew in.
We were on death watch, and there was no physical pain,
no medical reason. I think she she well. We knew
she suffered from some depression over her years, but she
kept that pretty well hidden. But there was no love

(16:16):
in that house. We had a family that moved in
upstairs that were supposed to keep her company and take
care of shopping and cooking her meals and stuff like that,
but they did not get along well. And I noticed
some tension when I'd come visit, but apparently it was
a lot worse when we weren't around, and and I

(16:37):
know my mom wasn't happy. So I think she looked
around and said, boy, if this is my final years.
That's it. I'm out of here and get to check
out early. So she kind of willed herself to die,
and that's how this all began.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
So yeah, and so when you move out there are
you So you go out there and you just stay
out there, even though you're stayed.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Out there for a few for a few weeks when
I she was on the man. After about maybe three weeks,
no food, no drinking, she snapped out of it. And
she snapped out of it. I think only because we
found out the hospice nurses, because we had hospice. Sometimes
new ones come every day, and in least in New Jersey,

(17:18):
when you call hospice, they're on contract for about six
months unless someone expires earlier, and usually the end is
not a good one. But this one nurse came in
and she took one look at our mother and she
knew the directive, no food, no meds, let her go,
she's transitioning. And she took one look and said, missus poro,

(17:40):
are you hungry? And at that point my mother's eyes
were closed most of the time. She never spoke. She
did respond a little bit to touch, but her eyes
flashed open like a dinner bell rang and it was like,
what is going on here? And now this nurse accuses
us of trying to starve our mother to death after

(18:01):
doing these interviews and research that I guess does happen.
There are some kids who don't really love the parents,
and so this lady. WE got very angry at this
lady and said, go call your supervisor because you broke
the rules. And the supervisor told her to leave and
they sent another nurse in. But in the meantime, I'm
feeling guilty, thinking that maybe the original assessment was wrong

(18:24):
because they're not perfect. And so I went in and
I asked my mom if she was hungry, and she says,
what do you got? First words in weeks? And this
is now March. This all happened a few days after
her eighty ninth birthday in February, and then now we're
into March, and she says, how about some pumpkin pie?

(18:45):
And I said, well, it's not really a pumpkin pie season.
But my brother, who lived about twenty minutes away, was
in the living room, and I said, if you want,
go find some pumpkin pies, and he came back in
less than thirty minutes with two fresh pumpkin pies. Know
where he got him, I don't know if he baked
him or whatever, but he came back with two fresh
pumpkin pies and that pretty much woke my mother up.

(19:09):
Whether it was the sugar rush or whatever, I don't know,
but she snapped out of it and the color came
back in her face and she was alert, and it
was fabulous. So at that point I thought, Okay, we're
gonna at least me, I'm gonna have a bigger hand
and taking care of her. So I hung out for
a number of weeks. Everybody else started going home, and

(19:33):
when I felt she was on the mend, I went
back to LA and then we kept in touch. At
that point, my brother got her an iPad, so we
did face timing and stuff like that. So I kept
in touch, and I came back a few months later
for one of her grandson's weddings, and I took over
her care again for those two weeks. And I grew

(19:53):
up with three sisters with long hair, so I kind
of knew how to take care of the hair and
things like that. Learn more than just put the toilet
seat down, and so all this all this stuff kind
of came in handy, which was great. So I got
her all dolled up for the wedding. This was the
first time she was out of the house since this
whole incident, and uh, and she had a great time

(20:14):
and she I called her the bell of the ball,
and she wanted to dance though at this point she's
in a wheelchair, and she loved all the food and
she had a great appetite, and she had a great time.
And so during that those two weeks, I asked her
if she wanted me to come back and do this
full time, and she said yes, and so I got

(20:37):
her permission, and then that put the wheels in motion.
So the decision was easy, and working out the logistics
took a little time. But so I moved back in
December of that year as a supervisor, really because at
that point we had still some professional cares taking care

(21:00):
of her and I was making some money designing my
brother's offices. So I would live there but during the
day I was working, and then I would also hang
out with these care workers and learn whatever I could
about you know, if I did take over, So I
think again, the wheels started turning where I was thinking
maybe I got to do something about this.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
And so talk to me about that relationship with the
care workers. How did you want to learn from them
and interacting and treating them differently than just coming in
and going through the house. How did that help you
and your mom?

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Well, it's at least the hospice people. And again some
of the care workers were just excellent and they were
very generous with sharing and they knew they could tell,
you know, when a family members loved and they were
willing to share their expertise and stuff. So that was
great and also for us being open and treating them

(21:57):
not like workers. But these are the people now with
my mother's life in their hands, and they sensed that
and it was great. So hospice I learned quite a bit.
And with each care worker I would just see how
they interacted with my mother, because my mother could be
a tough cookie. She you know, she was a Jersey girl,
but she grew up in Long Island and she had

(22:18):
I said, a very accurate BS detector and if that
went off, it was a real tough time trying to
get her confidence back. And but none of it didn't
go off at all. With the it did with the
people upstairs. But it didn't go off at all with
these various care workers. So I just gleaned what I
could from them, just to you know what. I wanted

(22:40):
Mom to know she was loved and we cared about
her and wanted to do as much as we could
for as long as she wanted to be here.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
How did that change? How did that pumpkin pie moment
change her outlook on wanting to live? Do you think?

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well? I think I have a chapter in the book
called a Silent Scream, So I think she wanted some
love back in the house, and there wasn't much there
before all the kids came back. So having all her
kids there showed that she was loved and we wanted
her to be around, stay around for a while. I
think that was an important factor. Again with the pumpkin pie.

(23:19):
It it might have been the sugar rush, because she
down half the pie the first day, she down the
other half the next day, and the third day she
downed a full pie, and then she moved on to sherbet.
Eight bowls of sherbet a day. Jersey was running out
of subet. This is March and April. We had to
keep running out and get in half gallons and half gallons,

(23:40):
and we realized she was probably on the most continuous
sugar high. But she was back, and we said, you know,
you're eighty nine. Whatever you want, and then we slowly
got her onto real food. But I knew when she
was back because I hadn't been back there for a
number of months because my mother again with depression. She

(24:01):
became kind of a grumpy old lady and I didn't
like being around her, and if you took her out
in public, she would make sure everybody had a miserable time,
and so I stayed away. I guess quite a bit
that that previous year, and so when she snapped out
of it with the pumpkin pie, she hit me with, well,
I haven't seen you in alone. So I knew she

(24:25):
was back when she could get back to guilt tripping.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
That's so good. Where did the title of the book
come from? Was there a specific moment that led you
to titling this?

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, we had a number of rituals that we came
up with, but her favorite beverage was cup of hot
tea skim milk, no sugar. And at this point, getting
her in and out of the bathroom was not so safe,
so we put a commode bedside, and sometimes mother nature
took a little longer than was comfortable for either one

(24:57):
of us. And this is when I was doing the
twenty four seven care so it kind of as a joke.
I said, would you like a cup of tea while
we're waiting? And she said sure? And it became a hit.
And so not only was I multitasking, she was a
multitasker too, and so this became part of our morning ritual,
which was great.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
That's funny. I love the title of it. That was
what really caught my attention first, because I was like, Okay,
there has to be a story behind that.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Yeah. Yeah, And I had another one in mind, another title,
But as I was writing and getting deeper deeper into
the drafts, this just kind of popped up and I said,
that is pretty catchy. So let me run it by
a few people. And I think my oldest brother, kid
who wants to think about that? He said, it's great,
it's catchy. Yeah, he's since come around.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Oh good, you swayed him too. Ou talk to me
about like maybe one of the toughest moments you faced,
and how humor helped guide you through that.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Well, let's say early on, you never know, you know,
when you're doing the twenty four seven care you never
know if you wake up in the morning, if they're
still going to be there, and so you're you're always alert,
waiting for you know, some sound or something. And at
this point I was I was upstairs and she was

(26:17):
on the first floor, and I hear my name being
called kind of stressing in the morning. It was like
six in the morning and I just got to bed
a few hours earlier, and so I come flying down
the stairs and as I don't know how many there's
thirteen steps, I've may maybe touch two of them. I
slide into her room and I go, what is it?

(26:38):
What are you? And she says, oh, you are here,
of course I'm here. Where else am I going to be?
She goes, I just wanted to check. I wanted to
kill her. I said, okay, next time, can you check?
Maybe a couple hours later that would be lovely. So
there were certain moments like that. Again I had to

(27:00):
I think, okay, this is you know, I gotta think
of more of the humor side of this, because obviously
she's not sure if anybody's in the house, right, And
there were other times when she she peed on me.
There was quite a routine to get her ready for
bed at night. There was you know, after the visit

(27:23):
on the commode, you do a full sponge bath, you
attend it to any medical needs. Uh usually give body
lotion and and I'm just taping up her diaper and
she starts peeing on me. Now that's cute if you're
a new parent with aborn baby, not when it's your
ninety year old mother. And I look at it. I go, mom,
I was just finishing. Why now it's natural? And I

(27:49):
just had to laugh atout. How can you be mad
at that? She had absolutely no control over anything at
that point, everybody functions, So I just started all over again,
then double checked before getting that diaper bag.

Speaker 1 (28:03):
Are you sure?

Speaker 2 (28:06):
These other times she forgot my name out of all
the kids.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
She had a wicked sense of humor, so I wasn't sure.
So one morning I go, and this is a several
months in and I'm wiping her butt a couple of
times a day and doing all the everything else, and
she greased me with so what is it? I call you? Right?
And she says no. I said, name your kids, and
she says Laurel, Michael, Carol, David, dec and stumped, I

(28:36):
said Mark and she says, oh, Mark, Mark with the K.
I said, yes, you named me, and then I said
I'm your favorite son. She goes, well, I don't have favorites,
and I said, well, you have a favorite to forget.
And so instead of getting mad again, you know, forgetful,
there's still your mother, but they're a little slower, the

(28:57):
mind may not be fully functioning and all that stuff,
and setting getting mad, I just taped my name in
big block letters up to the ceiling. So when I
would come in the morning, she'd be laying in bed
and I'd say good morning, and she'd say good morning,
and then her eyes would shoot up for the visual aid,
and then very proudly say Mark. And after a few

(29:17):
weeks we didn't need that anymore. But I had a
chapter in the book titled does wiping butt cause Amnesia?
And I think I have evidence that in fact, it does,
because I have all the kids. I'm the one doing
it and I'm the one she forgot.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Oh that's hilarious. Yeah, you you can make in nexus
at the two ur correlated.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, yep, I have evidence scientific We took notes.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
Yeah. Anyway, a limited data pool, but a pool nonetheless.
All right, So you mentioned something that story that I
wanted to go back to, and I was talking about
how you only had a couple hours of sleep and
you're rushing downstairs to check on her because she just
wants to see if you're there. And the question is
about balance, seeing your own self care when you're prioritizing

(30:02):
somebody else's needs so heavily. How did you work that
and how did you manage to maintain your own wellness
because sense of humor is probably a direct result of
how you're feeling, and how did you balance that?

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Well? The pros say you got to take breaks, and
I didn't listen to the pros. When my sister and
I were hanging out with hospice when this first thing started,
we took breaks because we had hospice on duty. But
since I was there alone, I didn't want to leave
Mom and less necessary, and so I didn't listen to

(30:42):
the pros. And actually Mom almost outlives me because I
had some some I had to go through three emergency
surgeries at one point, and they said it was probably
stress related. So that was not fun, but I learned
a lesson. So you know, there's a reason on the
airplanes while they say put your oxygen mask on first

(31:03):
before attending to your loved one. And so you have
to maintain your your it's it's mentally, emotionally and physically
stressful and you have to do your best to maintain.
You got to be in good shape to be able
to take care of them. And and I was aware
of that because while while she slept like a baby,
she slept many hours. I renovated her entire house and

(31:26):
the first floor that I did was the basement, and
I put a man cave in there. I got a
rowing machine, I got some weights, we had a treadmill
in there. And I knew I needed exercise, and I
always ate pretty well and always kept in pretty good shape,
so I knew I had to do that, but I
didn't do it enough. And sometimes it's best just to

(31:46):
get out of the house for a walk in nature
and stuff. And I didn't listen to the pros at
that point. So I always tell people, you got to
do it. You got to listen to the pros and
take the breaks and do your best.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
So how would you like, what advice would you give
to somebody if they're struggling to create a routine that
allows for that break. What tip would you give on that?

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Well, it's that's that's the hard part. That's what didn't
do it. So you got to have someone fill interview.
Whether it's even just a few hours or if you
can do a weekend or something, that's great. It's very
tough to find someone you can really trust, that's a
pro that you can trust and that your loved one

(32:32):
gets along with. We went through a thing where before
I took over the full care I was there, let's
say as a supervisor, and I take over night duties,
but for the day, we tried to hire a full
time person. So we went through the interviewing process and boy,
that's when you really realize how tough it is to
find a good qualified person. And we had two other

(32:55):
families live in the house before the latest people, and
the first one was an absolute disaster. Second one they
were great. The wife was a nurse. The husband was
a really good handyman, but he also worked for some
very powerful people as like the go to guy, so

(33:16):
he was very well versed in all kinds of things
that may have come up. They got along great with
my mom and she got along great with them, and
they would come visit after they left, but unfortunately, they
saved enough money to buy their own home after about
a year, and then the new people came in and
they were all sunshine and roses in the beginning, but

(33:37):
after some time moved on and the tension started arising.
So it's tough to find him when I would go.
Every few months, I had to go back out to
La to attend to the snack food business, and my
sister would fly in. She also lived on the West coast,
so she would fly in, so we always had a
family member there and my older brother who lived close.

(33:59):
He was the point man before I took over, and
he would hire the people and take care of her
meds and things like that. He would still come in
every Tuesday night to cook dinner and get Mom ready
for a bed at night, so he stayed in practice.
He did that to keep up the routine so if
I did, which I did when I had to go

(34:19):
to the hospital, he filled in while we were looking
for someone else to take over, and he had a
lot of old he's in the financial business and a
lot of older people whose finances he took care of
and sometimes they needed caregiving, and so he would have
like a network of caregivers that he trusted. And when

(34:43):
this whole thing happened with me, one of them one
of those caregivers. Her name was Marina. Her patient passed away,
so she needed a job and she was great. She
ended up being absolute heaven, it was, and we were
very lucky to have her, but very rare to find
someone you can fully trust.

Speaker 1 (35:05):
How long did this whole journey take from going from
hospice where you thought it was a matter of days,
through all your solo caregiving and then working with your
families of how long was the whole process?

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Three and a half years? Wow, Mom just turned eighty nine.
She lived to I'm going to ruin the end of
the book ninety two and a half.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Now did she ever ask you, guys, like why did
you why was that on hospice? Or did you ever
tell her like, Mom, they told us you weren't going
to make it. Was that ever a conversation.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
I don't think we ever had that conversation. We talked
she mentioned death. Maybe it was three and a half
years maybe a couple times, but I mean we had
a priest delivered the last right. She was a strict Catholic.
Police delivered the last rights in the first go round.
And it was funny at the end when we knew

(35:59):
now her her body and mind were all in sync,
that we brought another Catholic priest in, you know, three
and a half years later and she's at this point
again barely opened her eyes, no talking, no moving nothing.
I held her hand and she would squeeze back. But

(36:19):
as soon as we called the priest and he walked,
he crossed that threshold of her door, she wakes right up. Hello,
and I go, oh my god, I said her. In
front of the priest, I said, if you stand, I'm
going to kill you. Luckily he laughed, but she knew,
you know, you know, a man of God walked across

(36:40):
into her bedroom and she just snapped right out of it.
And then as soon as he left, she was gone,
not dead, but she passed out again. So there was
another time where she said, we had some really interesting
conversations and really funny moments. But so one morning she says,
I'm saying goodbye, and I go, what do you mean?

(37:01):
You're saying goodbye? Where are you going? She goes, Heaven,
I hope, And I said why. She goes, well, I'm
not going to hell. I said, yeah, I know, but
I just fixed your house. Don't you want to enjoy it? Oh? No?
And then I said, well, and I just bought three
bags of crunchy granola. I knew she liked that, and
so I thought that might get her. And she cuckled.

(37:23):
But then she you know, she slept a lot, so
she just right and went right back to bed. Yeah.
And then other times she said she wanted to take
her earrings off, and I said, I've never seen her
without earrings. I said, why do you want to take
your earrings off? She goes, I want to save them
for heaven. And I said, well, the safest place for
you to have them is in your ears, so when

(37:43):
you get to heaven, they'll be right there. She goes,
oh okay, and I went to sleep. But that was it.
We never talked about death, you know, with my dad,
we did have you know, I had eight days with
my dad, unfortunately just eight days, but his mind was
still sharp. It was his body that was conking out.
He had heart disease. And he would say he had
so much to live for and and all these other

(38:06):
things he wanted to do, and we shared lovely stories.
Mom wasn't all that talkative at this point, and though
she was a social butterfly her whole life, she was
really She could strike as my dad would joke, she
could strike up a conversation with a tree, and she
was lovely, but she was pretty quiet these last few years.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
What do you hope readers take away from your book,
not just about caregiving, but about life, resilience and love.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Well, there's a I mean there's I don't say it's
a I say it's not a how to book, it's
a what I did book. And I think I took
a different approach being a son. I made it a
little more romantic, and I wanted my mom to know
that she was loved and she was beautiful, and I

(38:59):
tried to make every day special. One of the things
I tried to do is make her laugh at least
once a day, So humor was a big part of it.
But also whether it's corny, our tender, loving care. I
did all these little special things that I thought that
we enjoyed quite a bit. And I think as I'm
sharing these with more people, they're getting it. You know,

(39:20):
you have our elders sometimes if they're bedridden, it's really
hard to hug them. And hug is so something that
you know, they're they're they're lovely. And as we get older,
you know, we still want to be loved, we still
want to be hugged and and all that stuff. So
when I would get Mom ready for breakfast, her legs

(39:42):
are still pretty strong for for for being bedridden, but
I would help her stand up and I would make
sure she wrapped her arms around me, and I picked
her up underneath the arms, and before getting into the wheelchair,
I'd say morning, hug and we would we would embrace,
and it was just a lovely little moment, and I

(40:03):
didn't think that much of it, but this is something
we did almost every morning, and those little things are
really important. And then and then i'd sit her in
the wheelchair and take her into the kitchen. Also, I
felt when I first came on board that her dignity
was kind of whittled away from her experience with these
other people, and so I wanted to return not only

(40:26):
dignity to her but to her home. And so the
first thing I did is brought her a new wardrobe.
And so you want to cheer anybody up, especially a lady,
A new wardrobe is going to do it. And it
was great, and her reaction to that was lovely. And
then she worked full time and she had six kids,
but she treated herself to a weekly visit to the

(40:47):
beauty salon, and I know she enjoyed that. She got
a shampoo and set and got her nails done. She
had beautiful nails. And whenever she came out to visit
me in Los Angeles, I would take her to my
friend's salon in Beverly Hills, and she got the movie
star treatment. And I knew she really enjoyed that. So
I tried to create that in her house. I didn't

(41:09):
know the last time she went to a salon, had
her hair done or anything like that. Now it was
very long, hair was beautiful like she had as a child.
But so I called a day of beauty. And while
she was I normally gave her two sponge mats in
the morning and at night, but on Dey of Beauty,

(41:29):
while she was on the commote, I soaked her feet
in Ebsen sawts. I shampooed and rinsed her hair, and
then I tended to any medical needs, and again she
got a full body massage with lotion, and then she
got a new diaper, and then she picked out what
she wanted to wear from her new wardrobe. And then
I did the morning hug and then put her in
the wheelchair, and then blow dried her hair and put

(41:52):
it in a ponytail or a for bonus points of braid,
and gave her lipstick, and then I did her nail.
And I didn't think that much of it. I just saw, oh,
this is a nice little gesture. And then as I'm
wheeling her into the kitchen for breakfast, we passed a
big mirror in the dining room, and I parked her

(42:13):
in front of that mirror. Now, I don't know the
last time she looked in the mirror, and I don't
know the last time she looked in the mirror and
liked what she saw. But what she saw that day
was she loved. And I just leaned in and said,
who is that pretty girl? And she just beamed and
I said, oh, my gosh, the power of this little thing.
I didn't think again that much of it, but it
was powerful and I had a huge effect on me,

(42:36):
but also everybody that saw her because she felt beautiful.
And I learned a good lesson is wanting to feel
pretty doesn't fade with age. It's very important, you know.
I think everybody wants to feel special, and so this
made her feel, I guess extra special. And so I
parked her in front of that mirror every day and
just said, who's that pretty girl? Because I wanted her

(42:59):
to know that she was not only loved, but we
felt you know, it's our mother and she's beautiful. And
it was infectious. Everybody that saw her saw how happy
she was and stuff. So it was really cool.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
That's so powerful to give somebody back their dignity, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
Yeah, and I'll deserve it and it's a shame that
it disappears at some point, but yeah, it's great when
you can return it.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
Yeah, that's an amazing story. Mark. What would you say
to someone that's listening in our community it's maybe stepping
into a caregiver role for the first time in their life.
What's one piece of advice you wish you would have
known when you started?

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Well, take the breaks. First of I would have to say,
what was nice about my life experience before this, because
I did this when I was like fifty five, so
I had a design career before that. And in design,
empathy is a big component of designing. You have to
take in the end user, understand them, walk in their shoes,

(44:01):
and start to see how they get to react with
whatever you're designing, whether it's a logo, a toaster, you know,
gas pump, anything. So empathy was something that was always
kind of ingrained in me, but patients also. But I
would say and acting came in as a very important

(44:21):
component also because for a son, at least, you know,
I'm looking at my mother naked for the first time
when she's eighty nine, and you're seeing what the years
have done to her and what gravity has done to her.
And I didn't want her to feel uncomfortable with my uneasiness.
So as an actor, I said, listen, I'm now the caregiver.

(44:42):
I've got to play that role. She's still my mother
and my loved one, but now she's also my patient
and I got to be a pro. So I got
to get over it and get on with it because
I got work to do. So that kicked in very
early and I was very fortunate, I think from my experience.
So I would say to people taking this on if

(45:03):
they're thrust into it, if you're not comfortable and you
can't keep that uncomfortableness out of the room, find someone
who can. Because you don't want your loved one to
feel guilty and feel like they're a burden to you.
You got to find the joy again, back to this motto.
If you can find the joy in it and keep
that smile on your face and keep any of the

(45:26):
negativity and the discomfort and stuff that you're having out
of the room, that's the best thing to do. And
then again we had let's say that out of the
six kids, two of them were very hands off. They
were uncomfortable doing it, and that was fine because they
were they helped in other ways where that was in

(45:46):
their wheelhouse, and so there was no bitterness or anything
about any of the kids. Well, my sister, my younger sister,
is the one that hung out with me in hospice.
She had five kids of her own and a business
in Michigan. Whenever she came in she jump right back
in to help out, which was great. And then my
oldest brother Michael would again do those Tuesday nights without

(46:07):
fail all the time, and uh with I have to
say a little less tender loving care than my version,
but it got the job done. I would say, a
look on mom's face and she's face planted into the
hospital railings as he's rolling her over to wipe her fanny.

(46:27):
But she survived and she was good. So that would
be the main thing is do what you're comfortable doing.
If you're not doing the hands on, that's fine. Let
your loved one know that you're there and you care
about them and you're doing the best you can with
with with whatever your abilities are. But I think knowing

(46:50):
that the love is there is the most important thing.
Who's ever doing the changing in the diapers and stuff,
you risk you know, being forgotten. So you know I
don't want that either.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
So let me ask a follow up question there, because
you hit on something I think is so interesting, especially
as my mom's agent, my wife's mom's agent, and both
of our dads have already passed, and that is, how
did you not get resentful if the other siblings weren't
doing the day to day like you were, Like you said,

(47:22):
they stayed in their wheelhouse and you allowed that because
I see too many times families get torn apart kind
of at this stage. Right one person's doing somebody else's
either not capable, or they're raising their own kids. They
don't have the time. How did you navigate keeping the
peace amongst siblings so you didn't have infighting?

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Well, I was very lucky, I'd have to say, because
once I got mom's permission and they would see how
I was doing things, and I was pretty successful with
a lot of stuff, especially like when I was renovating
the house. They all knew I was a pro with
doing that, and they saw how Mom was being treated
and how how happy she was, so they all yielded.

(48:06):
They were great. There was there may have been some
things I don't know about, but from what I could tell,
everybody was fabulous. And my oldest sister again would come
in when I had to go out to la and
she didn't find the joy in it that I did,
and she was always just mystified how I could enjoy

(48:26):
this as much as I did. But you know, you
go through that stuff and you see your mom smile
or puck her up for a kiss and or squeeze
your hand in those quiet moments, and that was all
the payback you needed. It was just those are lovely
moments and I was fortunate to have many of those,
And so I feel I don't really feel guilty because

(48:49):
I chronicle it in the book, But there were a
lot of special moments that if I didn't write this
stuff down, that I maybe would have felt guilty because
they missed out on all this stuff. And so it
may be and selvish on my part to say I
wanted to be here, I want to do all this
stuff because I get a lot out of it too.
So yeah, I think again, you if you put the

(49:11):
onus on your loved one and they're the most important thing,
you do what you gotta do to reach that goal,
which was the keep her happy and safe. And I
have to say I was very fortunate from all these
other stories I hear the siblings were great.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
That's fantastic. I want to shift gears with you, Mark
before we wrap up. And you said something at the
very beginning that caught my attention and it's something I'm
pretty good at as well. And that said, you said,
you get bored and you move on in life. You've
done a bunch of different things, and that's kind of
my story too. I jump around, I do things until
I don't find it entertaining or fun, and I go

(49:48):
find something else. Talk to me about how you give
yourself permission to not hold on to who you were,
to recreate something new.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
In this particular circumstance.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Just in life, Just in life going from the snack
food to acting to full time caregiver and a moving
to south of France, because so many people I find
don't really want to continue living the same life they've been,
but their security and safety there and they won't take
that leap to what could be.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
I don't know. I think I've always had an adventurous side.
I think that growing up, I was the fifth out
of the sixth kids, so I got two older brothers,
two older sisters, and a younger sister, and we were all,
I think because of my parents both worked and they
were both very independent financially and emotionally, and I think
all of us are as well. And so all of

(50:45):
us at one point owned our own businesses, which was
I thought interesting, and we thought, well, either it's we
were ambitious or people who are afraid to hire us.
I'm not sure what it was. Maybe a little bit
of both, and we're all from Jersey, so we have
a reputation of being somewhat we can be somewhat brisk

(51:06):
and suffer no fools and stuff like that. So I
don't know. Again, I think I was fortunate and I've
never really hit any disaster. It's just maybe the boredom.
But when I took this song with Mom, of course
there was no moving on. I had to learn what
unconditional love really was about at that point, you know,

(51:29):
not having children, not marrying. I thought I had a
little grasp of it with my pets and things like that,
but you know, with Mom, it was a thing we're saying,
there's no moving on until she wants to move on.
So that was a life lesson. But also with the
snack food business, that was my business. My brother and
I started it to honor my dad. So when you

(51:53):
have that kind of motivation, that's enough to keep you
in it, because there are a lot of struggles with that.
We did that for about fifteen years, and there were
ups and downs, a lot of really ups in the beginning,
and then they get some stressful points in the middle
and stuff like that, and it was but it was
all you know to keep my dad's product on the

(52:13):
store shelves and the people's mouths and stuff like that.
So with that one again, when I was in La,
it was almost twenty four to seven doing this business
before the cup of tea stuff came up. And my
motto there was, you know, you'd be dead tired and
you have to work in the morning and do another

(52:33):
twelve hours shift. And it's like, I love my job.
I love my job. I love my job. Was that
moto motto, and I said, if I kept repeating it,
I'm going to believe it. And there were times where
your fingers are cut and bruised and your body is aching,
but you got to do another twelve hours because you're
the only one who can make this stuff at this point,

(52:56):
and so you got to move on. So if you
have I think a good motivation, and certainly giving your
loved one a lovely way to leave this earth is
certainly should be motivation enough that certainly helped helped me
throughout life. And also growing up watching both of my
parents set examples. They didn't really lecture us about a

(53:21):
lot of stuff, but they we watched them do the
right thing and good deeds and caring for others and
things like that. So we just grew up with a
lot of this stuff was normal. So again, taking this
on for Mom was just the right thing to do,
So there's no question about doing it.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Mark has been an honor to sit and talk with
you today. Where can our community connect with you? Follow
along on your journey. Pick up a copy of a
cup of tea on the commode.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
If they google a cup of Tea on the commode,
We're everywhere. The website is cup of Tea on thecommode
dot org. My email is a cup of Tea on
the commode at gmail dot com. I got a YouTube
channel with a lot of funny little videos probably over
one hundred and eighty of these things now and uh

(54:08):
where I mean from TikTok to Pinterist to LinkedIn, it's
all over. So yeah, if they just do that a
cup of tea and the como, they'll find me.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
Mark, thank you so much for what you're doing in
the world, for sharing the story of caring for your
mom to inspire and bring some humor to what can
be a heavy topic because others around the world face
the same challenges.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
Well, it's my pleasure and uh, I love I love
sharing this story because it keeps my mom in the present,
and so that's your gift to me. So I thank
you especially for that.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
Thank you Mark, and remember team life is far too
short to live any other way than on purpose. We'll
see you all again next week.