"When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days, decades years earlier. Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she'd been to her three, now-grown children. But to what consequence? Astrid's youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Her daughter is intentionally pregnant yet struggling to give...

"For as long as Elizabeth can remember, she has watched her father trail after her mother, kissing her multiple times a day and holding her hand. She watched her mother smooth the lines in her father's face and pay attention to his every move, even when she was desperate for some time to herself. When her parents began to age, Elizabeth and her siblings are placed in the difficult position of taking over more and more supportive roles and tasks. They...

Carrie Hanwell is a female firefighter in Texas, and she's a total pro at handling other people's emergencies. But when her ailing mother asks her move to Boston, Cassie suddenly has an emergency of her own. She finds a job at a tough, old-school Boston firehouse, but firemen aren't exactly thrilled to have a "lady" on the crew--except for the infatuation-inspiring rookie. But she can't think about that, because love is girly, and it's not her thing....

In telling the intimate story of caring for her aged and ailing mother, Jane Gross offers indispensable, and often surprising, advice for the rapidly increasing number of adult children responsible for aging parents.Gross deftly weaves the specifics of her personal experience-a widowed mother with mounting health problems, the attendant collision of fear and ignorance, the awkward role reversal of parent and child, unresolved family relationships...

"An exquisitely written, expertly reported memoir and expose; of modern medicine that leads the way to more humane, less invasive end-of-life care based on the author's acclaimed New York Times Magazine piece. This is the story of one daughter's struggle to allow her parents the peaceful, natural deaths they wanted and to investigate the larger forces in medicine that stood in the way. When doctors refused to disable the pacemaker that caused her...

Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch, "Scout", returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming becomes bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her.

"What do you do when the people you love are declining right in front of your eyes? What can you do but rage at all that is cruel, laugh at all that is absurd, and show up for whatever happens next Mira Cayne's father has been in physical decline for decades, ever since his spinal cord injury at the age of forty-four. He was never the dad who ran a marathon, but he was the strongest and most resililent man Mira knew. Now, at seventy-nine, Matt Frank...

Alice Brill wakes up one day with a vague, but nagging sensation of unease in her chest that signals trouble. Is it her marriage-drifting along for years on auto pilot-that's so troubling? Her unrealized aspirations as a writer? Her unsettled younger son? Or is it something about her father, once a prominent surgeon but now slipping deeper into senility in a nursing home? There is also the matter of the writer whose book she's editing, in her new...

"A witty, tender memoir of a son's journey home to care for his irascible mother--a tale of secrets, silences, and enduring love. When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself--an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook--in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from...

"A compendium of family scenarios for those dealing with the guilt, worry, and difficult decisions that come with eldercare. Is it time for your aging father to stop driving? How can you balance your career opportunities with your mother’s care needs? Can your parents cope on their own? Is it time for long-term care? Given their reluctance, is that even an option? Millions of people are dealing with aging parents and are stunned with the complexities...