The question of our research and our book is as follows: What is the experience of African-American elder male caregivers? Research and literature on African-American older males as informal, primary caregivers of demented or impaired family members, particularly spouses, are negligible. Male caregivers in general have been called “hidden” caregivers. Thus, we named the elderly African-American male caregivers we interviewed for this book “the hidden among the hidden.” We asked the experts—a group of 13 African-American male caregivers—to discuss the concrete and nonmaterial aspects of giving care to an impaired loved one. Our book addresses the knowledge gap about African-American male caregivers by revealing, in case-study form, their experiences of caregiving in the context of their personal biography and cohort history. Our focus is the practical and existential meaning of daily life as a caregiver. The men discussed in this book are over 60 years of age, most are long married, and they have been caregivers in their homes for at least 5 years and as long as 25 years. Their loved ones, particularly wives, suffered from a variety of illnesses and debilities that necessitated hands-on care. The book examines varied aspects of the caregiving experience, the unique generativity of men who give care, and the emotions and conflicts about decision making that emerge in day-to-day caregiving.

This chapter, as the conclusion to our book, is entitled Addressing the Silence. We went “behind the scenes” of our work to examine the research process and pondered various aspects of interviewing a coterie of African-American men. For example, why were our caregiving men so willing to discuss their experiences of caregiving? Were there topics within caregiving that men were reluctant to discuss? And, why did the methods of our research fit well with the subject of caregiving and with the communal history of our respondents? Although our research addressed the gap in the caregiving and gerontological literature about elderly African-American men, our respondents showed us how much more we need to learn from them. As men discussed their care work in the forum of the research interview, the role of the elder African-American male caregiver came out of the shadows, but not yet completely into the light.

In prior research, elders recounted experiences of suffering as a rupture of the integrity of the person, thus a brokenness in body, mind, and spirit. Persons interviewed stated that their ethnicity, biography, history, and mental and physical health were integral to an experience of suffering. Likewise, the context of suffering—when in life it occurred, its cause, and its resolution—also was included in descriptions of suffering. Did male caregivers agree with this assessment? We welcomed caregiving respondents’ definitions of suffering and asked them to give examples in their own lives. This chapter also explores the experience of mourning the loved one who is still alive but lost within dementia or is enduring other illnesses.

If an experience is distressful enough to be called suffering, does it truly end, or does residue of the experience continue to assault the person’s wholeness? In this chapter, we offer three themes that that emerged as means to resolve suffering or to protect themselves from experiencing suffering despite distress. They are: (1) having goals, (2) sharing the power of the family story and (3) maintaining friendships with other African-American men. The three themes were often interrelated in men’s accounts. Men interviewed for this research revealed the importance of looking toward the future with hope and plans in hand, keeping previous generations alive through reminiscence and, seeking friendship with other men, particularly during caregiving (Black, 2015; Mattis et al., 2001) and showed older African-American male caregivers to be involved in reciprocal friendships with other men, which one man described as “what keeps me going.”

In this chapter, we explore the experience of an elder husband who was the primary informal caregiver for his wife of 60 years. We describe their encounters as caregiver and care recipient through the years as a pilgrimage. We do so because we believe this word has a revered connotation. Generally, two or more people travel together to a pilgrimage site for the sake of gaining spiritual insight or meaning. In a pilgrimage, the journey toward the site becomes an important part of the sacred quest. The husband who is the subject of this chapter cared for his wife for over 25 years. Through the years, his wife became increasingly impaired and incurred several serious illnesses at the same time that he, as caregiver, experienced his own illnesses and the declines of age.