Funny and very touching story, brutally honest under my daughter's eyes. This book is A wonderful, light-hearted look at an issue and age that so many of us will be dealing with before too long.
Patty always said it was never going to be her. She wasn't the one who was going to have to take Mom in eventually. And Mom didn't want to move either - she was FINE by herself. FINE. So Patty nodded her head sympathetically every time her siblings talked about the inevitable and said, with all the sincerity she could muster, "Gosh, I wish I could help but..." As Patty says in the book "Until she fell. Now, I don't want to make it more dramatic than it was. Yes, she fell. Ok. But it was a little fall. I mean, she didn't fall off a mountaintop - she fell getting up from her recliner. But she hit her head on the bookcase and apparently bled quite a lot. But head wounds bleed a lot - everyone knows that! She managed to get herself up from the floor and call an ambulance. Done. But it did get her to thinking. What if she had passed out? What if she had broken her leg? How would she get hold of anyone? Since the woman refuses to turn on her cell phone that wasn't an option. She HAS a cell phone, yes. It's in her purse. But she won't turn it on. She doesn't want to "use up her minutes". By turning it on. I know, I know - YOU try explaining it to her. Anyway, it got her thinking. Thinking that maybe she shouldn't be alone." And so it begins.
It's one thing to make room for her mother but quite another, as Patty quickly finds out, to make room for all the "stuff". The Avon? The Hummels? The stuffed bears? What to do with it all? Who will cut and who will be voted off the island? Follow along with Patty as she and her siblings start the process of trudging down memory lane with nothing but a little patience and a lot of trash bags. You'll laugh, you'll cry but most of all, you will relate to this daughter's journey.
