Personal experience with loss, long-distance caregiving, and aging in place inspired a new vision for helping families prepare before a crisis occurs.
By: Brandon Davis, EVP of Growth and Strategy
Late 30s, early 40s…you’ve built a life, a career, a community. The people you love have too, just not nearby anymore, in different cities, different time zones, and with different priorities. You stay in touch in the ways you’ve learned how. It works well enough until something happens that exposes the limits of that distance.
When my dad passed three years ago, life closed in at once. My mom was in the Midwest. My brother was overseas with his family. I was here in the Bay Area. Almost immediately, I was no longer the expert who understood systems. I was doing my best to support and navigate from across the map, without a clear path or local understanding.
This can be one of the most trying experiences of your life. It’s the worst, to be frank. Deeply isolating, even when you know others have gone through it. And at the same time, it is one of the most common human experiences we share.
There is grief, most obviously. And there are pressing decisions. You are trying to keep up with complex new realities while your mind is overloaded. There is pressure to advocate, to ask the right questions, and not miss something when you are barely holding on yourself.
My wife is a doctor, and I do not know how I would have navigated without her. Even so, it was not straightforward. We were translating in real time, trying to understand what mattered, deciding when to push and when to accept, and balancing emotion with strategy. We were simply trying to piece it together and make the best decisions with what we had.
It’s is an experience you cannot shake.
Even now, I think about what we went through and what we could not have predicted. You do not truly understand what being prepared looks like until you have lived the consequences of not being prepared.
The questions stay with you.
What could we have done better?
And even now, I wonder whether my mom’s life is set up in a way that will not require scrambling to navigate unknowns. Can we prevent suboptimal choices, honor her wishes, and support her in all the ways she deserves?
If no one answers the phone at my childhood home one day, what happens next?
And in the middle of that, who is actually there in person? Who is checking in and noticing the things you cannot see from a different time zone? Did she get her mail? Who steps in when you are working full time and trying to keep your own life afloat?
My mom still has a full life to live, and thankfully, she recognizes that. So how do we set our loved ones up to live the way they want, for as long as they can?
For my mom, that is clear. It is her home and her community, the house she has lived in since I was born. Through everything, one thing has always been certain, her Deaf community. People show up in deeply meaningful ways. There is understanding and compassion, along with a readiness to care for one another. It is steady, genuine, and beautiful. People drop by, bring meals, and come to play cards. This supportive fabric is something you cannot put a price on.
I have spent most of my life working with people who do not have those layers of support, navigating homelessness, disability, and systems that are hard to move through even on a decent day. That has been my work for nearly two decades. I have built human-centered services and sat with people in the most difficult moments of their lives.
But I had not felt it like this before.
This disorientation is what pushed me to build Ability Link. I kept coming back to the same questions. Who will walk the dog? Who will mow the grass? Who will help make sense of medical information or help prevent fraud? Ability Link bridges that gap, helping people understand what is happening, connecting them to trusted local support, and making sure they are not navigating alone.
It is just as much about the everyday navigation that becomes overwhelming over time. Scheduling appointments, translating medical information into something understandable, and connecting people to the right specialists before things escalate. Showing up in person through home visits that provide visibility into how someone is doing. Convening families so everyone understands what is happening and can move forward aligned. Creating a consistent line of support so that when a critical moment comes, you are already many steps ahead.
This work led me back to Peninsula Healthcare Connection. I had known their work for years, dating back to their medical respite work in San Jose. What stood out then is the same thing that stands out now. They are consistent. They lean into complicated situations. And they approach the work with both professional expertise and personal warmth.
Bringing Ability Link into PHC felt like closing a long-standing gap, particularly in the space before and around senior aging, when families are still trying to find their footing.
That is the reality for many of us now. Our lives are more connected, but also more spread out. When something critical happens, the distance becomes clear, along with its limitations.
It’s shocking how one moment can shift everything. When that moment comes, what matters is simple. Whether someone is there. Whether you can make sense of what is happening. Whether you can move through it without losing your footing.
You cannot predict every unknown that comes with a high-pressure moment. But you can start now. You can put structure around what is within your control. You may not completely prevent a crisis, but you can reduce avoidable barriers and ensure you are not also dealing with things that could have been addressed ahead of time.
That is the work as I am excited to build upon.
How do we clear a path for ourselves and the people we love now, so we can get back to honoring the lives we have worked so hard for?
