How Do You Throw Away Memories?

My mother would have turned 85 Monday. My dad would be 83 this summer. Both are gone now, dying three years apart in a nursing home I pass by several times a week. Unlike their siblings, they did not live independently into their 80s or 90s. It just wasn’t meant to be. Instead both declined over years until death became a blessing. It was an honor to be their primary caretaker in those final years. That journey began eight years ago this month. My father had long been disabled by a botched medical procedure, at the same age I am now. For 17 years my mother cared for him, but it had become...

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