Uncertain Inheritance, An: Writers on Caring for Family

All of us at some point in our lives will need to confront the issues written about in this eloquent collection -- whether it's our parents, our spouses, our siblings, our friends, or even ourselves. The writers here tackle the subject with intimacy, poignancy, grace...and a great amount of courage.There are stand-outs for me in this collection: the writer Helen Schulman asking her father, "We all love you, we still have fun together, we still can enjoy one another, does any of that help at all?" Her father's reply: "No, you and your love don't help me." As a daughter myself trying to tackle my mother's depression after my father's death, this line really resonated.Then there's Eleanor Cooney's remarkable essay, "Death in Slow Motion", about her mother's descend into Altzheimer's disease and the toll it takes on her -- unflinchingly real, not at all flowery, straightforward and raw. Or Ann Hood's essay "In The Land of Little Girls", about the death of her five-year-old daughter...which broke my heart by the courage it took to go back to those emotions and write it so perfectly. And Amanda Fortini's "The Vital Role" about her own debilitating tropical illness and her symbiotic relationship with her caregiver: "a story that arose from a perfect confluence of needs: one person's desperate need to be cared for and another's equally urgent need to care."I could go on and on about these gems, all focusing on the most elemental of needs -- connection, intimacy, loss, courage. This is an important book, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

As a full-time caretaker, I could identify with many of these stories, and all of the stories were worth reading. I read it in just a few sittings.

I was really looking for a book about caregiver's experiences to donate to a non-profit agency that will be offering support and other services to family and professional caregivers. There are a range of different issues of care giving offered in this book, each presented by an author who has experienced the issue personally. Though excellent in theme, I find it hard to get past the profanity--specifically the "F" word--used in a few of the accounts. Use of it did not add any credibility to their tales, and in fact, it detracted from them. I place partial blame on the editor for not removing it. For people who are supposedly writers/authors who submitted these stories, you would think that they would have better literary ways of expressing themselves. Needless to say, I would be embarrassed to donate this book as I had originally intended. I surely will not now.

Not a practical "how to" book, this is an excellent collection of short, personal essays which ring true to me. (I have been a caregiver for a parent and for a close friend.) This collection is highly recommended for its insight, honesty, and yes, sometimes bittersweet humor. These essays recognize that we are not perfect, that we make mistakes, that our feelings can be ambivalent even whenour love is strong.

Both my husband and I thoroughly enjoyed this book. My mother is in a nursing home and has dementia.

As a writer and sole caregiver for my 84-year-old mother who has Alzheimer's, "An Uncertain Inheritance: Writer's on Caring for Family," edited by Nell Casey piqued my interest.Writers wrote the 19 essays gathered for this book, but more importantly, these essays were written by caregivers and those being cared for themselves with a no-holds-barred brutal honesty.Under my currant circumstances, I thought this book might bring me to tears with each story, but I was wrong. It's that powerful honesty written eloquently in all its vulnerability that will grab your heart, reduce you to tears, cause you to chuckle, and in some cases infuriate you, as it did me.These stories weren't fiction fantasies or pretty pictures of caregivers being selfless martyrs, as some may think, and the patients weren't patiently waiting to die; these were true accounts of people--parents, children, spouses, friends, and siblings--who while living life, being all they could be, were stricken with illness or injury and needed help.Caregiving for the chronically or critically ill is not a pretty subject. These writers opened their homes, hearts, and minds and let out every ounce of love, fear, frustration, and anger and shared the trials and tribulations they felt during their caregiving journey.Each essay had its own merits, story, and sense of need.Helen Schuman in her essay, "My Father the Garbage Head," writes with poignant, heartwarming honesty of her father's heart attack and strokes which led to his death.Sam Lipsyte, in "The Gift" speaks openly and humorously about his drug abuse, how it wrecked his life, and while he "cleaned up his act" his mother let him move back in. Shortly after, his mother tells him and his sister that her breast cancer had recurred. He handled the news with a matter-of-fact acceptance that he would be her caregiver.Ann Harleman's "My Other Husband" describes her husband's illness and the grueling bleakness and burden of MS. Her heartfelt love showed in each of the slices of their life she describes before MS took over. Her friend told her, "With chronic illness, a lot of times the caregiver ends up dying first. Out of stress and exhaustion. I've seen it." After years, frustrated and worn, she finally decided to place him in a nursing home "for his sake and hers."Eleanor Cooney's essay "Death in Slow Motion" was formed from a former Harper's Magazine article and later became a book under the same name. The eloquently written story is about her mother, writer Mary Draper, and her decline with Alzheimer's Disease. Cooney shoots from the hip with her openness of dealing with Alzheimer's and the dilemmas and life interruptions her and her mate dealt with after moving her mother into an apartment close to their home. After just a few short months of her mother's arrival, Cooney find herself in an argument with her mate, who bolts out of the house to clear the air, and she stands in the dark with her "heart pounding with fury, sorrow, anguish." She speaks of her mother's lack of memory, repetitive conversations, questions, and how people with dementia "become unappetizing."Susan Lehman, in "Don't Worry. It's Not An Emergency," tells a grim, yet capturing story of her nearly 300-pound mother, who spoke with a "thunder" voice, or "blast," sat and ate sorbet, doughnuts, huge amounts of candy, and smoked cigarettes all day. Lehman moved her mother from her home in Ohio to live on the 8th floor of her apartment building so she could keep a closer watch on her. Her three children adored their grandmother and visit her daily. The story of her mother's illness is not the least bit funny, but Lehman manages to spin the tale with utmost charm and humor."In the Land of Little Girls" Ann Hood's 36 hour experience with her 5-year-old's illness and quick death was appalling in many ways. Hood describes not only the illness and death, but also her devastation at Gracie's death and the horrible treatment she and her family were subjected to in the hospital."An Uncertain Inheritance" may never become a best seller due to the subject matter, but it should be a book that each and every human being should read and realize the reality it speaks about; they too may face the need to be cared for, or need to care for someone else. I only hope the readers have families like these who take that responsibility seriously regardless of time-consuming needs, the love, the fear, the frustration, the anger, and the rejection that may be a result from it.

I have cared for the terminally ill; both professionally and privately. In the future I will likely need care. This book shows everyone's perspective. Never judge.