Well that's an interesting idea and I will throw out some things I have mused over this past year with my mum (broken hips leading to immobility and dementia) and dad (still mostly in his right mind but blind so needs help with many practical things).
The issue of taking on another person's problem as if it was 100%
your problem. How NOT to take this too far. How not to obsess about your parents' issues 24-7 even when you are not with them. Co-dependency and 'needing' to be needed (astrologically the water signs especially Pisces and Cancer will do this, and anyone with a strong Neptune -
sacrifice - and Saturn -
responsibility - mix).
The so called 'law of allowance' or 'law of non-interference'. Letting people have an experience that, if it were not meant to happen, would not be happening. Letting them make decisions as far as possible. Not needing to rescue and solve every little thing for them. Not becoming "the fat controller" of their life. How not to treat them as a child even though in many ways they have become a child. Stepping back. Allowing a little inner growth in them through letting them mull things over or work out a problem for themselves. Realising that though they would have preferred life to have stayed exactly the same, 'life' hates stagnancy and is always ready to move onto a new experience and that is what is happening here.
The problems of balance. How your help to parent affects
other people in your life. How do you split your responsibilities? Once you've been torn into several pieces by conflicting demands, is there anything of you left? Do you have the right to preserve some part of your own ego needs that are not being hooked/demanded by the needs of another person? Dropping the ego is meant to be good for our spiritual growth. However, if we then effectively take on the ego and its needs of another person as if it were our own, have we not just become the clone of another ego? Where is the spiritual 'me' in all of that?
Astrology itself. Does this determine our lessons and give us no choice, or do we have room to manoeuvre? How our 'fates' are intertwined. For example, Pluto and Uranus are currently activating my mum's Moon (memory), my Dad's Venus (represents Mum) and my own Mars in Cancer 12th house (the urge to serve and sacrifice). This 'moment in time' brings us all together intensively to experience a plutonic kind of bonding and problem solving, as well as the uranian urge to escape from it all.
The thorny issue of karma. My Dad says, "I suppose this is our karma". I think his thoughts on it stopped there. I would go further and ask, "yes but what is the lesson?". But is it my duty to try and push his own understanding of what it's all about? Is my understanding of his karma (perhaps his previous taking-my-mum-for-granted) even the right one? How much any of us can understand the spiritual lesson lying behind another person's life. Best to consider only our own??
The issues of attachment and detachment. When to let go somewhat and allow others to take on some of the care and not feel weird about it (see codependency again). The issue of being quite literally "attached" via energetic links between our chakras and the resulting draining of energy from one person to another. People put hooks in us and if we try and get them to accept help from another person, the hook isn't there so they will resist because they're not feeling the connection. How much draining of our energy can we accept before we get ill ourselves?
Acceptance that everyone is different. That includes the "invisibles", the people in our family who don't help out. Do they have their own path to follow that does not include the issue of the ailing parent? Is their archetypal pattern/programme unconnected to the parental issue? Astrology can help again, as you can see connections between charts that practically insist upon one son or daughter being more involved with the parent than the others will be. Some "must travel" this road, while some "must not".
Standing above it all. Realising that this is the Universe sending Itself out as little sparklets of energy all designed and destined to have particular kinds of unique experience. Appreciating the opportunity to play this game which in the greater scheme of things is just a tiny moment-in-time-and-space of the oneness exploring what it can think, feel and do in particular circumstances. Seeing some kind of beauty and perfection in all the difficulty and the madness and the pain.
This is an interesting read on another forum..
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,28867.0.html?PHPSESSID=0847d574110b4c6d67f595ff8e0c399b
Best of luck with your writing. If you want me to clarify on anything I wrote above, please say.