Our clients are often experiencing some type of pain — physical challenges, mental incapacity, or emotional pain. That pain may come from a situation connected with long-term disability, a loved one's troubles, or substantial medical expenses.

Our clients may be pressed by concerns about either their own long-term care or the disability of a loved one. Occasionally, they are consumed with worry over an adult child who has gone wrong. The facts and circumstances vary, but the pain is an ever-present reality. Perhaps the pain is having a disabled child. Surprisingly, that can be the case even when the client is very old. There are many who face the possibility that their adult child will never be able to care for themselves. That parent lives with a unique fear — the fear that their child will outlive them. Other parents are concerned that their child might die before them — but the parent of a disabled child worries about dying before their child and that their child will face a hostile and uncaring world.

One parent recently expressed his concern about how to provide for his profoundly disabled daughter after he is gone. He said, "You know, there is a big difference between 'care' and the 'loving care' that my wife and I give to our child." There is the pain of being unable to buy Long Term Care Insurance when you know that you really need it.

Sometimes the client completed an application with the hope of being accepted. Unfortunately, after the company examined the medical records, the individual was rejected. The insurance agent was forced to call the client and give them the bad news that they will not be able to purchase this type of insurance at any price.

That person knows pain. "The Prodigal Child" — that troubled daughter or son — is often the cause of great anguish and parental despair. There is the old Bible story of the prodigal son who takes his portion of his father's estate: goes out, squanders it in wild living, and ends up in the gutter. Parents may have a number of children who turn out just fine, but one child — sometimes their only child — takes destructive choices. It might be drugs, gambling, rage, or alcohol. This child may not be "legally disabled," but there is no question to the parents that their adult/child is behaviorally disabled.

Often the parents have sacrificially given to that child. Other members of the family may well be angry and resentful. The parents worry what will happen when they are gone. They still love their child. Will the family be destroyed? Who will take over the parental role? How are they going to provide some sort of positive and value-based loving care? That parent knows pain. The whole family knows pain.

When they call us, they are looking for some sort of pain relief.