Cindy Ann watched Daisy wash her mother’s clothes
Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2025 3:44 am
Next Avenue’s original post reads, “Millions of Americans will be able to relate to this story.” Cindy Ann identified herself as one of those millions of Americans almost five years after her mother’s passing from complications of Alzheimer’s dementia. Her post included the message, “I can relate to this woman in this story. Its the hardest thing to see ur parent dealing with Alzheimer”s ..but i did it for 9 yrs caring for my Mom i have no regrets. I would do it all again even if she didn’t remember who i was. I love & miss you dearly Mommy..” , brush her teeth, apply her makeup, do her hair, show her how to hold a spoon, sit her in a recliner to watch television—all while exclusively speaking Spanish. The invisible care work Cindy Ann provided her mother nearly a decade before was publicly visible for the world to see.
I also related to the family portrayed in the film. As I viewed the video, I was e-commerce photo editing of my own experience helping my grandmother care for my great-grandmother when the three of us lived together in San Antonio. This personal connection prompted me to comment with a note of: “thanks for sharing.” I appreciated the connection Cindy Ann created in that moment.
Several of her other Facebook friends left comments in response to her post. There was one from an employee at a local adult daycare facility: “Yup and ur mama was a beautiful blessing for us at seniors 2000! I loved her so much <3;” and another from a current caregiver, “Aww I’m doing it right now. My heart aches every time I leave my mom. I pray for her mind to heal. It’s one of the ugliest diseases ever encountered! I pray they find a cure very soon.” Others were comments of support, such as: “Super hard, girl.” and “Amen.”
The commenters were all women who either acknowledged Cindy Ann’s experience as their own or validated it with words of empathy and support. That winter morning, Cindy Ann’s public Facebook page was a place where women came together to share a commonality of experience in an online space. The care community helped to make visible their friend’s caregiving labor, as well as their own—in effect becoming a part of care labor history.
Though the internet seems to be “forever”, the ephemeral nature of certain online spaces—such as social media pages and posts that can be deleted or websites that are no longer supported—necessitates an archival space such as the Internet Archive, which on May 9, 2017 captured the full-length documentary Cindy Ann posted about. Nowhere else on the internet can I access this film without a subscription, rental, or purchase. As a researcher, the Wayback Machine is an invaluable archival research tool that I rely on to provide accurate records of historical online spaces I can no longer access. However, we must find a way to better preserve social media pages such as Facebook, Instagram, X, and others where caregivers post and provide community care. The sheer volume of pages and posts may have made this a challenging task previously, but with new AI language learning models, we can begin to conceive of ways to more pointedly target and capture the rich history of online care communities and women’s virtual care work.
I also related to the family portrayed in the film. As I viewed the video, I was e-commerce photo editing of my own experience helping my grandmother care for my great-grandmother when the three of us lived together in San Antonio. This personal connection prompted me to comment with a note of: “thanks for sharing.” I appreciated the connection Cindy Ann created in that moment.
Several of her other Facebook friends left comments in response to her post. There was one from an employee at a local adult daycare facility: “Yup and ur mama was a beautiful blessing for us at seniors 2000! I loved her so much <3;” and another from a current caregiver, “Aww I’m doing it right now. My heart aches every time I leave my mom. I pray for her mind to heal. It’s one of the ugliest diseases ever encountered! I pray they find a cure very soon.” Others were comments of support, such as: “Super hard, girl.” and “Amen.”
The commenters were all women who either acknowledged Cindy Ann’s experience as their own or validated it with words of empathy and support. That winter morning, Cindy Ann’s public Facebook page was a place where women came together to share a commonality of experience in an online space. The care community helped to make visible their friend’s caregiving labor, as well as their own—in effect becoming a part of care labor history.
Though the internet seems to be “forever”, the ephemeral nature of certain online spaces—such as social media pages and posts that can be deleted or websites that are no longer supported—necessitates an archival space such as the Internet Archive, which on May 9, 2017 captured the full-length documentary Cindy Ann posted about. Nowhere else on the internet can I access this film without a subscription, rental, or purchase. As a researcher, the Wayback Machine is an invaluable archival research tool that I rely on to provide accurate records of historical online spaces I can no longer access. However, we must find a way to better preserve social media pages such as Facebook, Instagram, X, and others where caregivers post and provide community care. The sheer volume of pages and posts may have made this a challenging task previously, but with new AI language learning models, we can begin to conceive of ways to more pointedly target and capture the rich history of online care communities and women’s virtual care work.