One of my favorite movies of all time is Pretty Woman. Julia Roberts and Laura San Giacomo play friends and roommates who are prostitutes–dangerous work. Whenever they say goodbye to one another, they say the same thing.
“Take care of you.”
I’m not a prostitute.
I’m a wife.
I’m the mother of four young children.
I’m the caregiver of my [...]

When my mother began forgetting things, we chalked it up to simple old age. She put a calendar on her fridge to keep track of appointments and a notebook and pencil by the phone to write down important notes. No big deal. I mean, who among us doesn’t forget things, right?
As it got worse, I [...]

 ”When you tell me it’s time for me to stop driving, I won’t argue with you.” I can’t tell you how many times over the years my mother told me this.
She’d had the responsibility of telling her father, a notoriously bad driver, that it was time for him to stop. I think it came after he sideswiped [...]

My mother, who is now 82, was diagnosed with dementia 1 1/2 – 2 years ago. I remember leaving the doctor’s office with her. Driving in relative silence back to her home as she clutched the receipt for her visit in her hand. She looked down at it, read the word “dementia” written in as [...]

I last blogged about 6 1/2 months ago. I was elated when I wrote that post . Michael had just been hired after a long layoff. Just six weeks later, he was laid off again as the start-up company quickly realized they’d hired more people than they could afford at such an early point. He [...]