memoir Archives

Walking Him Home: Helping My Husband Die With Dignity

Walking Him Home: Helping My Husband Die With Dignity Author: Joanne Tubbs Kelly Love, like illness, is often sudden and complicated. With four failed marriages behind them, Alan and Joanne hardly expected to find each other. Joanne was divorced, living on her own for the first time, in a new job. Alan, her boss, had recently been abandoned by his wife. It was the beginning of a deep, lasting affair of the heart. It was also the beginning of a painful journey that would end on January 11, 2020, with Alan sitting in bed, drinking a cocktail of medicines designed to [...]

Frances Carden2024-11-25T18:02:25-07:00November 25th, 2024|Tags: book review, colorado, medical aid in dying, memoir, read, reading|

True Confessions of an Ambivalent Caregiver

The Personal Cost of Care Author: Cindy Eastman In the spare 168 pages of True Confessions of an Ambivalent Caregiver, Cindy Eastman dispels the myth of the exultant caretaker, blessed and honored to give up everything, to thwart desires and change routines, to take care of an aging, dependent parent. Eastman writes short essays during the four-year ordeal of caring for her dying father, who gradually becomes unable to take care of himself. Wishing to avoid the teary-eyed grief of after the fact, she writes in blunt prose about the feelings of the moment, the complications of duty, the inadequacy of [...]

Frances Carden2024-09-02T12:12:29-07:00August 30th, 2024|Tags: aging, book review, caregiver, essay, memoir, read, reading, reviews|

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

A Moving Memoir Author: Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a powerful memoir about survival, about finding beauty and a voice even in the most desperate circumstances. It’s a story about self-definition, one that starts with five-year-old Maya watching her grandmother, a respected, educated Black woman who owned a shop, being mistreated by jealous white people. From the opening lines, then, we see that Maya’s growing up will be interspersed by moments of connection and cataclysmic disruption, unfairness both inside and outside of the family. Maya doesn’t belong anywhere: not with the white community and not with [...]

Frances Carden2024-06-29T20:24:49-07:00June 29th, 2024|Tags: book review, classic, memoir, read, reading|