"You Have to Receive in Order for the Circle of Love to be Complete" by Kaeli Hansen
Summer Season of "Letter From A Caregiver"
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I’m Victoria. You can read why I’m publishing Carer Mentor here: Who Started Carer Mentor and Why? I created Carer Mentor to offer heartfelt empathy for Caregivers. It’s a hub of practical tools, resources, and insights. A community support network for all of us human-ing hard. ❤️ Start exploring here.
Letters from a Caregiver.
“Letters from a Caregiver” is a weekly article where a caregiver offers their wisdom, compassion, and hope to their younger self. No one knows us as well as we know ourselves, and even then, we may second-guess ourselves. The choices, challenges and tragedies we’ve faced have forged us in more ways than anyone can understand; in ways we’re still trying to decipher!
Since September 2025, thirty-two letters have been posted over three seasons.
This Summer Season so far
Today’s ‘Letter from a Caregiver’ is by Kaeli Hansen
I met Kaeli via her publication “Caregivers Count” in early 2025.
During our network forum, Caregiving as a Spouse/Partner Kaeli shared this intro-context to her caregiving:
“My beloved first husband died after a courageous and gruelling battle with stage IV throat cancer. Most recently, I have been the primary caregiver for my second husband, Kurt, for the past four years.”
Having had a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) myself during my first husband's cancer was really difficult, and after his death, I met Kurt, who became my caregiver. Then suddenly, he had 5 strokes, and everything changed overnight.
You can read more from Kaeli at Caregivers Count with Kaeli. I recommend reading:
Caregiver Role Reversal. When Your Caregiver Becomes the One Who Needs the Care
When the Caregiver Gets Sick: Giving Yourself the Same Grace You Give Everyone Else
I finally ate the “wrong thing” for someone whose tummy is not yet accustomed to Ecuador. It made me think deeply about my own vulnerabilities, including disability, and the one thing that can happen to any of us—illness. But caregivers can’t always get a day off. I haven’t perfected self-care; it’s still a struggle for me sometimes, but if you can relate, continue reading for some possible ways of coping.
Yes, Kaeli and Kurt are now in Ecuador. I recommend reading about their experiences of travelling, the healthcare system and day-to-day living.
Thank you for sharing your letter with us Kaeli. I know how difficult it must be to relive the emotional rollercoaster of caring for Sean.
Author’s Bio: Kaeli Hansen is a writer, caregiver advocate, and coach whose work sits at the intersection of caregiving, creativity, and consciousness. Drawing on more than thirty years of family caregiving experience, she supports caregivers and creatives through her coaching practice at kaelihansen.com. Her emerging initiative, Root and Return, offers nature-based programs for caregivers, creatives, and spiritual seekers. She is completing a Master of Arts in Transpersonal Psychology at Sofia University and is currently writing When You Love Someone Who Is Ill: A Caregiver's Honest Guide.
You Have to Receive in Order for the Circle of Love to be Complete
Dear younger me in Fairfield, Iowa, 2015—the year everything changed…
I know life seems to be going great. You should feel at ease with how things are going, but a gnawing in your gut tells you something is not right with your beloved husband, Sean.
In about a month, despite an internal medicine doctor and a specialist saying he is fine and just has a sore throat, you will know something is terribly wrong. He will be collapsing before your eyes. When you two go to a different doctor, he will call you back immediately and order you to go to the University of Iowa hospital by ambulance if you don’t have a car. It will be that urgent! Your intuition will be confirmed, but it will be extremely upsetting, as if an elephant were suddenly sitting on your chest.
When you both arrive at the University hospital, the young doctor will examine Sean’s mouth and, without hesitation, bluntly deliver the news: it is cancer. You’re going to feel like you’ve been punched in the gut, but you will try to hold it together for him. He will need you, and you will feel this is not about you at all, but about him. Nothing else will matter, except being with him. So, you will do what you do in a crisis and spring into action, using your research skills and past caregiving experience to help him. But you will be really scared and wonder, “Will it be enough?”
Cancer is not unfamiliar to either of you — you’ve walked alongside family and close friends through it and watched too many of them not survive. So when that word lands in the University of Iowa ED, it carries the full weight of everything you’ve already witnessed.
You and Sean have always been caregivers for others and have been reluctant to ask for or accept help unless someone was about to die, in which case you’ve relented. You want to be the one to give, and being on the receiving end feels uncomfortable. It’s likely a coping mechanism in response to past trauma, making you reluctant to be vulnerable. Your lifelong identity as a helper to others is threatened when you are the one in need of help. Needing help feels like proof that you are not enough.
When you are riding home after an 8-hour day of scans, appointments, and tests, your inner voice will whisper, “You have to receive in order for the circle of love to be complete.” You will get the message and think you are heeding it when friends offer so much help with meals, healing tips, fundraisers, and more while you’re still at home in Iowa. However, after a few weeks, you two will leave for Los Angeles to seek treatment for Sean and accept help only when people volunteer (which will be a lifesaver at times for you both). But you will refuse to ask until the last few weeks of his life.
Somewhere in the recesses of your mind, you believe that asking for help is a sign of failure. He will live for almost 2 years, which will be a miracle with stage IV cancer, but it will be an extremely difficult 2 years that will also include managing his mother’s care. You won’t feel you can ask for help, but you need to — otherwise you will be wrecking your health.
People will want to help and are only waiting for you to ask. Most people aren’t sure what you and Sean may need or want, and the best way to protect your mental, emotional, and physical health is to ask for help. You have friends in LA who love you and Sean and are ready to help. It’s not a failure to ask for it!
Furthermore, it’s okay not to be okay. You are not alone. You don’t have to “be strong” or be heroic. It’s okay to be brokenhearted. It’s okay to be tired. It’s okay to need help from someone else. You are loved and supported. People can be with you, but you have to be willing to ask. Even though you are not sure you can live without Sean, you will. You still have much to offer the world. You might not love yourself much right now — receiving love, even your own, doesn’t come easily yet — but please know that this will change.
Love
Kaeli (2026)
One last question to close the letter from Victoria.
Please share one quote/movie/book that’s inspired you?
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart." — Helen Keller
Prompt for discussion:
When your role shifted — from spouse, child, partner, or friend to caregiver — what did you discover about asking for and receiving help along the way?
Please like ‘❤️’ the article to guide others here.
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