When the Parent Becomes the Child: And Then There Was One

I’ve never minded solitude. For a writer, it’s a natural condition. But caring for a dementia sufferer leads to a particular kind of loneliness. —Laurie Graham My mother is leaving me. Her mind allows her to tell me about my favorite stuffed animal when I was three, my Effalunt, but Read more

Kissing the Patriarch Goodbye

It’s been over six years now, since I last spoke to my father: mid-summer, July 15th, 2014. I was in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and he was lying on a gurney at a funeral home — dead as a doornail. To hide the incisions of his autopsy, the back Read more