My Journal, August-October 1994

Those were my first three months as my mother’s caregiver. I had been separated for a couple of years, divorced for less than a year, in graduate school for about a year and a half, left grad school (12 hrs short) to be my mother’s caregiver. My sister had done it for a year and a half and was about to put her in a nursing home. I said no, it was my turn, besides school and relationships there hadn’t gone so great, I was ready to leave, had to stay the summer to make up an incomplete in a class from the summer before, then I was out of there and on the way home…

Now, 23 years later, my sister is in the last stage of Parkinson’s disease, with dementia beginning to gradually set in over the past few months. She has been crippled for years, about three weeks ago she became bedridden. At first hospice said 1-2 months, now they are saying she has just 2-3 weeks left.

I am again in a different town, did complete that Master’s degree just in time 19 years ago, have had a successful career getting close to 20 years now. I still have gone back home three or four times a year, was there a year ago in October for my brother’s funeral, and was there in September this year before my sister took one of several turns for the worse.