Caring for Mother: A Daughter's Long Goodbye

by Virginia Stem Owens

Book Overview

In Caring for Mother , Virginia Stem Owens gives a clear and realistic account of caring for an elderly loved one. Along the way, Owens notes the spiritual challenges she encountered, not the least of which included fear of her own suffering and death. This book will be a helpful companion to those who have recently assumed the role of caregiver, helping them anticipate some of the emotional turbulence they will encounter along the way.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0664231527
• ISBN13: 9780664231521
• Release Date: June 2007
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A practical and yet sensitive guide for family caregivers of dementia patients

I bought two copies of this book, Caring for Mother, to share with my sisters. It captures the emotional pain of dealing with the mental decline of a loved parent, the desire to provide the best care possible with the dispair of knowing it is not enough, even then, to alleviate his/her suffering. The author captures the emotional roller-coaster well, and her reflections on herself as well as her research into the physical realities serve as a helpful resource to the reader. I especially valued her final realization that the struggle, while painful, can lead to a deeper awareness of the value and meaning of human life.

An Essential Book on Dementia and Caregiving

Though the title did not sound promising, I try to read every personal account of Alzheimer's I come across, so I bought this book and sat down with it one night in my reading chair--and didn't get up for three hours. The writing was fluid, the characters strong, the dilemmas painful and eternal. "Caring for Mother" turned out to be both subtle and incisive, an essential book on dementia and patient care, perfectly contained in 163 pages. "This is not a cheerful book," Virginia Owens explains in her Opening Note, "but it is truthful." It's truthful, and it's vivid. The book has a story to tell, as it tracks the author's mother through an ever-increasing dementia toward what we know from the start will be a disaster. In the early chapters Virginia Owens helps look after her mother at home. Her mother has little faith in medicine: "She goes to the doctor the way I went to church as a teenager, bitter and under duress. She takes her pills like an apostate receiving communion, with little hope in their efficacy. A dark night for both soul and body." It's worse later, in the nursing home--that place, Owens says, "the name of which strikes terror into every person's heart." When she goes to visit her mother, most of the other residents ignore her. She doesn't blame them, "They had every right to their withdrawal. Only a handful of residents have visitors who come on even a weekly basis. Most are visited occasionally, some rarely or never. People who've been abandoned develop a thick coat of defensive frost." Owens' indictment of nursing homes is calm, steady, devastating. It's as abiding as the anger she sees in the residents: "You can feel it as soon as you come in the door. Cold Rage. For most of the people parked in wheelchairs, their anger has gone so stale after years of overuse that the emotion is routine now.... Anyone is culpable who comes through the front doors and is free to leave again under their own steam." Owens does her best for her mother, the best that she can manage. But what never goes away, she says, what "doesn't wear out or disappear, is the feeling--no, the certain knowledge--that I could have done more, done better." I could quote half this book, it's so good.

Caregiving

I have been taking care of my mother, who has Alzheimer's Disease, for a few years. More recently (6 mos ago) she has moved into my home. I laughed and cried when I read this book. I totally can related to each and every event. And yet, I feel privileged to be able to provide the care my mother needs at this time.

Very true to my experience

This book is very true to life. Since I am in the eighth year of caring for my 98-year-old mom with Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, I can definitely relate to many of the incidents written here. There are so many similarities to our past and present. I think it is a good book, especially for someone who is just beginning to care for their loved one. It helps with some of the unknowns "down the road."

AN IMPORTANT BOOK

Virginia Stem Owens's latest book is a tremendously valuable account of the author's intricate relationship with her elderly mother, ill with dementia. While it reads as an absorbing narrative--sometimes sad, sometimes funny, always keenly honest--it also offers a carefully observed and researched medical history, bound to be instructive to both older and younger readers. When her mother's physical frailty became problematic and Owens left her Kansas home to stay nearby her parents in Texas, she had no idea the sojourn would span seven years. In that time, her mother's diagnosis moved from Parkinson's disease to Alzheimer's, and Owens watched what she calls the "slow dismantling" of the intelligent and capable person she had known all her life. What distinguishes this book from other records of a similar kind is Owens's unfailing sense of irony. She takes no prisoners. No one, including herself or her mother, is spared her perceptive eye and subtle wit. Doctors and medical staff particularly, are depicted with total frankness--too busy, too hasty, forgetful, insensitive--including the psychiatrist who tells the patient chirpingly to "get out more" and "find a purpose in life." Yet the book is fair and full of compassion and the tone throughout is exactly right, an unusual accomplishment when the topic itself runs the gamut of emotions and human idiosyncracies. This is a tough record to read, but hardly depressing, and a wise-spirited author helps you through.