For me, it was a humid October day in East Tennessee. I pulled up in front of the one-level white ranch-style home my mother and stepfather had recently chosen, looking at the trees for the first hints of red and orange that promised cooler weather was finally on its way.

My parents were moving closer because their health was changing, and this house would make life a little easier for them. A few minutes later, I would walk through it with my mother, taking in some of the practical choices that come with getting older. Later that same afternoon, I would head home to help my daughter study for a math test.

Somewhere between those two responsibilities, the thought came: How did I get here so quickly?

I was still very much raising a child while beginning to step into a different role with my parents. This was the middle. Somewhere along the way, I had become a generation of my own, sandwiched between the one that raised me and the one I was still raising.

With this season comes another reality: at some point, many of us will find ourselves helping our parents make decisions about a lifetime of belongings. And with those decisions often come questions about what matters, what holds meaning, and what we want to carry forward. I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately, and it shows in my current reading list.

Here are a few books for the Sandwich Generation that I’ve recently read and enjoyed, each offering a different way to think about what we keep, what we let go of, and what we eventually leave behind.

Three Books for the Sandwich Generation: