We had a heart-stopping conversation with the medical staff at Mom’s care facility this week. After ascertaining that Mom is doing well, that she is stable and healthy (yes, apart from the Alzheimer’s), the head nurse asked us how we wanted the medical staff to treat Mom in an emergency situation. Meaning, if Mom stopped breathing (and one can just about imagine her falling or choking or otherwise having an accident), what level of medical intervention should the staff employ

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

What a melancholy experience to go through Mom’s closet choosing winter clothes for her. The season has turned, and now Mom needs sweat pants, long sleeved shirts, sweaters, and winter pajamas. My dad and I by-passed all of the clothes that once defined her open, laughing personality—the red and purple sweaters with geometric patterns, skirts with swirls of green and blue—and went for practical, muted garments. I did manage to slip a bright red cardigan into the pile. I hope

My brother Simon is arriving this Friday for a two-week visit! I am so excited to see him, and also a little trepidatious—he has not seen Mom since she moved to the closed Alzheimer’s ward. Simon has spoken to her by video chat quite often, and he gets daily updates from Daddy about how she’s doing. But this will be his first in-person visit. I hope it will not be too much of a shock. I was with Simon in California when Mom was first moved in May. I sobbed achingly and mournf

How does the little bird in P.D. Eastman’s classic book, Are You My Mother? know who his mother is? The bird intuits that only his mother will love and cherish him, feed him and care for his welfare, and in his short travels he eliminates those animals and things that cannot do this. This question has been troubling me as I both wilfully stay away from my mom and devotedly rush to visit. I can’t seem to reach a compromise. Because behind it all, I keep asking myself if she is

My dad got it right when he said about my grandmother: “Millie was someone who left an indelible mark on all those who met her and we will never see her like again.” I can’t say it’s been a hard loss. My grandmother was 101 years old and her quality of life had shrunk considerably. She was not always lucid. She needed assistance for every aspect of her daily life. My brother Simon mentally said his goodbye about seven years ago when she could no longer play scrabble. It is a

If you had asked me how life was yesterday, I would have written about the quiet day we had in paradise. Mom and I sang songs, drank coffee at our favorite cafe, went grocery shopping, then met my dad for lunch along the cliff top overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The day was warm and sunny. It felt like winter had ended. That was yesterday. This morning, 7:00 am Israel time, my precious grandmother passed away. She was 101-years-old. There were emotionally fraught calls bet