Everything was wrong. The antiseptic smells, the bedside table, the pull around curtain and the pajamas. I had never seen my grandfather in pajamas. I had never seen him so thin and so helpless. He was always the strong one with big hands, a big smile and a high-pitched laugh. There in the assisted living facility not only was he out of his environment but he wanted to rid himself of life itself. He was being redefined in ways he couldn’t fathom or believe.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Oh how I wanted to inject those words of Dylan Thomas into his veins and restore the strong man I knew in my youth and childhood.

But his lifeblood had run its course and all that was left was an ill-fitting suit of flesh. The rage was there but with no energy to live or die he could only cry for help. And I didn’t know what to do, so I sat by his side.

My grandfather died later that year, almost 15 years ago, at the age of 80. My thoughts went back to those days after reading Jonathan Rauch’s poignant article, Letting Go of My Father, in this month’s Atlantic. Rauch found himself utterly unprepared for his elderly father’s declining health and refusal to accept it. His father was charming, resourceful, generous, kind, funny, uncomplaining, and good at making friends and allies but he was also stubborn and unwilling to admit he couldn’t take care of himself.

Rauch managed to keep himself together during the multiple demands on his life by talking. To almost everyone. As he walked the streets, did interviews, conducted business, he took to wondering which of the middle-aged people he encountered were quietly struggling to cope with their own crisis . . .

How many of them felt utterly out of their depth? How many others, having come through an ordeal, had experience that they had no ready opportunity to share? According to the National Alliance for Caregiving, about 50 million Americans are providing some care for an adult family member. I was swimming in an invisible crowd of caregivers every day, but, like streams of photons, we passed through each other.

Witnessing the decline of a strong man is painfully difficult especially if you’re carrying his self-sufficient genes into the next generation. Fathering is for life and the day may come when you will need to “father” your own dad or mom. I hope by then I will be a stronger man myself, knowing that asking for help is a sign of emotional strength and not weakness.