Sometimes death is a kindness. That’s what I was thinking when my dad and I attended the funeral of a gentle soul who had been battling Parkinson’s for the last 18 years and the dementia associated with Parkinson’s only recently. The dementia had changed his personality. Caretakers fled from his violent outbursts, and his wife was forced to place him in a care facility. Their lives were topsy-turvy, their emotions in turmoil. His end was sudden and unexpected, one of many com

There are some days when I feel my mom so intensely, it is uncanny. Today was such a day. I woke up in a bad mood, as if the wind and rain from the last few days had somehow moved inside of me, as if I was utterly disconnected to the world around me—my singular world with its myriad of blessings—as if I was being buffeted by great gusts of weather that allowed me to see only grey, despite the sun shining in a bright blaze. I got to work only to discover that the computer, whi

“We are all capable of dancing,” Mom says as we swing round the room. She’s talking to the other residents who are mostly sitting in chairs, many staring off into some distant place. She wants them to join her in dancing. The “radio” is playing 50’s music and with the help of the staff, some of the residents wave their arms or rise and step tentatively in a circle. This dancing is a precursor to our main event—an eye exam with an optometrist who owns a business called OptiCar