When Jean Ferratier’s mother is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and cancer, Jean doesn’t hesitate. She steps in, determined to be the daughter her mother needs. As she balances a full-time teaching career, family life, and the growing demands of caregiving, Jean becomes the person everyone depends on.
Then everything changes. Jean suffers a heart attack.
As she recovers while continuing to navigate her mother’s declining health, Jean realizes that accepting help can be every bit as difficult as giving it. After her mother’s death, Jean faces a new challenge: discovering who she is when caregiving no longer defines her—and finding that beyond the grief and exhaustion, curiosity leads her to ask new questions, explore new paths, and find new answers.
Spanning three years, Who Will Take Care of Mom? is for every daughter, son, spouse, family member, or caregiver who has felt overwhelmed, alone, or stretched beyond their limits.
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I’ve always been a teacher—and I’ve always been a student.
For more than twenty-two years, I taught in the public school system, most of those years in kindergarten. I loved watching children discover what they could do and seeing their enthusiasm as they learned. For me, teaching was about more than the curriculum. I wanted children to enjoy learning and to be curious about the world around them.
Writing has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I’ve kept journals for decades, and books have always been among my best friends. My stories have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul and other anthologies. My memoir, Who Will Take Care of Mom?, grew out of the three years I spent caring for my mother, going through my own heart attack and recovery, and learning how to build a fulfilling life—and rediscover myself—after caregiving ended.
I believe our stories matter. Writing helps me hold onto the details of an experience, explore a thought, or capture something I don’t want to forget. My photography records moments; my writing helps me tell the stories and capture the feelings behind them.
Over the years, my interests have taken me in some interesting directions. I became a mindfulness coach and a Sacred Contract/Archetypal Consultant, which gave me new ways to explore how we understand ourselves and recognize the patterns in our lives.
I split my time between Columbia, South Carolina, and Herndon, Virginia, where I’m fortunate to be close to family and part of active communities in both places.
I love retreats and workshops, especially when they combine learning with the chance to experience a new place. It might be a workshop on a cruise, a retreat somewhere like Sedona, or an opportunity to explore a city while learning something new. If something catches my interest, I usually find a way to learn more about it. I love the combination of learning, travel, new experiences, and meeting people along the way.
I’m currently working on Windows of Clarity, a collection of short stories inspired by observations, experiences, and those unexpected moments that make us stop, think, laugh, or see something in a new way.
At this stage of my life, I’m still doing what I’ve always done: learning, exploring, writing, and staying curious about what comes next.
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