Here are 4 suggestions of books that could accompany you this summer. You can consult them in a linear fashion or pick up information here and there that interests you based on your situation, according to your desires and needs. Ask for them at your library!
03 June 2022
In her first memoir, Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through a mixture of cartoons, family photos, documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast’s memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents. The themes in this memoir are universal: adult children accepting a parental role; aging and unstable parents leaving a family home for an institution; dealing with uncomfortable physical intimacies; managing logistics; and hiring strangers to provide the most personal care.
But we can't lead our lives in fear of what might be. So live each day to its utmost, only then will you be free. (Poem by Chast's mother) - The author, Roz Chast.
Explores the beautiful and complicated mother-daughter relationship in the context of caregiving for an ill or aging mother and offers tips and suggestions for overcoming the more difficult aspects while celebrating and cherishing the more comforting features.
Both mothers indicated that they has no worries or concerns about living with their daughters. When asked about being dissatisfied, they both said they "never" felt that way - The author, Jeanne R. Lord.
Five months pregnant, on a flight to their “babymoon,” Allison Pataki turned to her husband when he asked if his eye looked strange, and watched him suddenly lose consciousness. After an emergency landing, she discovered that Dave--a healthy thirty-year-old athlete and surgical resident--had suffered a rare and life- threatening stroke. Within a few months, she found herself caring for both a newborn and a sick husband, struggling with the fear of what was to come.
“Tragedy can come at any time and in any shape. Life gets scary and it gets hard. We scream and we cry and we fall to the floor”- The author, Allison Pataki.
Witnessing acts of devotion and frustration, lessons in patience and in letting go, Nell Lake illuminates the intimate exchanges of caregiving and care-receiving and considers important and timely social issues: How can we care for the aging, ill, and dying with skill and compassion, even as the costs and labors of care increase? How might the medical profession take into account the needs of caregivers as well as patients? In this book, Nell Lake shares a thoughtful and tenderly reported depiction of the real-life predicaments that evoke these crucial questions.
Penny is steeped in memories. She copes with her mother's failure of memory, but is also the literal keeper of "Mom's Memories", an audiotape she asked Mary to make years before, in the mid-1990"s - The author, Nell Lake.
The above proposed selection of memoirs, testimonies and stories has been done among the one made in the Biblio-Santé 2022 edition booklet.
Biblio-Santé's thematic booklets contain dozens of references to books, organizations, websites and films chosen by certified librarians to help you find quality information.
These booklets cover a variety of topics: seniors and aging, cancer, intellectual disabilities, bereavement, mental health, Alzheimer's disease, etc.
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