Come Close: Why Human Presence Is the Missing Piece in Care Technology

I am supposed to write a blog post about a strategy for choosing the appropriate care tech tools for your caregiving situation. It’s part of my SEO/GEO-informed blog strategy. But I am not going to write that post, at least not right now. For two reasons, one, I have already written it. You can read it here. And two, after having conversations with people who inspire and challenge me, I have reignited something inside me. For months, I have been feverishly writing, recording, speaking, and sharing ideas with caregivers and tech founders, but due to the pace of tech, the news cycle, and the ever-changing landscape of care, it is often hard to slow down long enough to do the writing I want to do.

I want to have big conversations, deep ones that don’t just try to figure out how to manage care or caregiving as a system, though that is necessary right now. I want to talk about what got us here, why it all seems so impossible, and call upon our collective inner wisdom and imagination to do something to heal the broken parts of ourselves, our systems, and our society so that we can provide meaningful, tender, and loving care to those around us and ourselves. 

In other words, I want us to really care, but more than that, I want us to understand why it is important to foster and tend to care itself, rather than merely outsourcing it, optimizing it, and maximizing every part of it.

What if, instead of continuing at this breakneck speed of trying to do more, as caregivers, as problem-solvers, solution-finders, we slowed down and listened?

I used to be a storyteller. I mean, I still am, but I used to tell stories to children as a vocation, part of my faith calling, if you will. One of the themes in these stories was how God showed up for people. (Not into religion? Don’t leave, this is relevant, I promise I’m not preaching.) 

In the stories, whenever God showed up, the words of the story went something like this: “He came close to people, and when he did, they could see things they couldn’t see before, they could hear things they couldn’t hear before, they became well.”  

I am not suggesting that we are god-like, nor that technology is or should be. But I am always struck by how simple it is to come close to people as the first, and perhaps most important, thing in caregiving. 

And, go with me here, what if it is the only thing?

When we come close, we see things we haven’t seen before, we can listen to hear what we haven’t heard before, we have a greater understanding of the person right in front of us. Then, and only then, can we tend to their needs, including the need to be close to another human, to have human contact that is gentle and quiet, to feel the space between us as being a balm, a bandage, a bond.

But that isn’t realistic, is it? We are so busy, with work, with other responsibilities, and even if we are in the same room with our loved one, which isn’t even possible for many of us living hundreds of miles away, we still cannot come close. 

I know this was true for me. I went to my mother’s house every day. I bathed her, changed her when she was having a really bad day, fed her, all of it…and yet was so very far away. My mom was wise enough to notice this and would call me on it. “Can’t you sit down for a visit?” she would say. 

No. We can’t sit down for a visit. We have kids and jobs and partners and after-school activities, and chores and to-dos, and then, perhaps, a shower at the end of the day if we are lucky.  Or we live hundreds of miles away, and trying to talk on the phone or have a video call gets harder every week, and the miscommunication grows. 

Shouldn’t I be able to have a life, a family, a job outside of caregiving? Shouldn’t we be able to fully pursue our happiness? 

I’ve been answering this question for years and have written about how I learned to care for my mom, be present for her and to tend to myself and my life beyond it. 

But the longer I think about this, the more I seek ways, including tech solutions, for caregivers to care well for their loved ones and still have a life outside it,  the more I find that the questions I’ve been answering are not the only ones we should be asking.

Do I want to help caregivers find solutions to organize, communicate, keep their loved ones safe, and reduce their mental load? Yes. 

But what I want to do more is this…

I want to come close to the people around me, in my sphere of influence, my community, and listen to what they really want for their lives, for their loved ones. 

I want to understand why care feels like a crisis, and caregiving feels like a thousand spinning plates seconds away from crashing to the ground. 

I want to examine why optimization and innovation, the things that are going to “fix” the care and caregiving crisis, might just be the very things that are driving us to distraction, dissociation, and disconnection from the things that matter most to us. 

I want to explore whether technology, especially AI, can be used in ways that support our humanity rather than replace it. Can care tech help caregivers while simultaneously honoring the autonomy of the loved ones we care for? 

I believe that the last one is especially important when it comes to care and age technology. Tools to help us become more efficient, not so we can be more productive, but so we can become more present in our lives, with those we love.

I believe that this presence, connection with people around us, our family, however we define it for ourselves, our neighbors, is not something that we can treat as a thing we try to find more time for or something “other” or outside of our existence.  I believe it is the very aspect of our lives that makes everything else matter. 

It helps us feel not alone. It informs the solutions we create, the tools we build, the products we buy and sell. The issues in caregiving and care will not be solved in spreadsheets or by algorithms, though review and analysis are necessary parts of any process. No, the problems in care and caregiving will be solved around tables where conversation takes place, be it in person, online, or on Capitol Hill. 

So this is my call to those who give and receive care: use your voices to share your stories and experiences. And this is my call to those who really want to understand where we feel most alone, most in need, and most taken advantage of by a system not only designed for us… my call to you who want to find a way to help?

Show up. Come close enough to hear us. We always remember who shows up for us.