Mother lode : confessions of a reluctant caregiver / Gretchen Staebler.
Material type:![Text](/opac-tmpl/lib/famfamfam/BK.png)
- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 1647422833
- 9781647422837
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
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Main Library | NonFiction | 362.0425 S778 | Available | 33111010906218 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
". . . makes you feel as though a kindred soul is speaking to you." -- Readers' Favorite
At the age of sixty, Gretchen Staebler promises to spend one year in her childhood home caring for her stubbornly independent ninety-six-year-old mother--sort of a middle-aged gap year. Then her mother will move to assisted living and she will return to her own independent life.
It doesn't go as planned.
Rather than a retrospective, this mother-daughter story unfolds in real time with gripping honesty, bringing the reader along with the narrator through the struggle, doubts, and complexities of caregiving and daughterhood--and the beacons of light.
Penetrating the fog of her mother's advancing dementia and myriad health issues with humor, frustration, and compassion--and wine--Staebler slowly comes to accept and respect the mother she got, if not the one she wished for. In the process, she manifests non-negotiable self-care and learns more than she wants to know about aging, cognitive loss, and the healthcare system.
Any reader who is looking for a road map in caring for a family member, has ever had a mother, or is looking aging in the eye will find company on the journey in this candid, multi-award-winning memoir.
'Gretchen Staebler promises to spend one year in her childhood home caring for her stubborn ninety-six-year-old mother--sort of a middle-aged gap year. Then her mother will move to assisted living and she will return to her own life, their relationship magically having become all she ever longed it to be. Can it be that easy? As mother and daughter each try desperately to keep a firm grasp on their independence, their daily battles in Mama's kitchen fiefdom echo the clash of adolescence and menopause in the same spot decades earlier. Penetrating the fog of her mother's advancing dementia, hypochondria, and blindness with humor, frustration, and compassion--and wine--the author slowly comes to accept and respect the mother she got, if not the one she wished for. In the process, she becomes a self-taught authority on aging, dementia, the healthcare system, and self-care. But how long will healing between mother and daughter take--and how long do they have?"--Amazon.com.