Caregiving in our family looks like what I suspect it looks like in a lot of families: two sisters doing their best with two parents who each have complicated health needs. My father has dementia. My mother's healthcare requires consistent attention — appointments, medications, coordination between specialists — and there are stretches when she needs more hands-on support and comes to stay with me at home. My sister lives with my parents and anchors everything on the ground. I live 240 miles away and drive in for a week or two every month. We split the responsibilities based on who can handle what and when, and we cover for each other when one of us needs to step away. At the time of this trip, my mother was doing well — managing independently, just needing reminders for her medications. My sister had everything in hand. So we packed our bags and boarded a plane to Rome.

Here's how we managed our five-day Catholic pilgrimage to Rome — a carefully planned itinerary that took us through all four of Rome's major basilicas: St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, St. Peter's Basilica, and St. Paul Outside the Walls. We also attended a Papal Audience, visited the Scala Santa, the Borghese Gallery, the Colosseum, and some of the most beautiful churches in the world. Along the way we ate extraordinarily well, stumbled onto one of Rome's greatest hidden gems, and nearly had a very serious medical emergency. All of it is here.

And yet. The worry doesn't simply turn off. Anyone in this kind of role knows that. The mental load of managing a parent's medical needs doesn't pause when you board a plane — it just changes shape. What I learned in Rome, among many other things, is that worry and presence can coexist, and that giving yourself permission to be somewhere joyful is not the same as being irresponsible. It is, in fact, how you stay in this for the long haul.