I enjoy Anna Quindlen as an author and this book is one that struck me hard. In my real life I work as a hospice social worker and deal with some of the issues of illness, dying and caregiving on an (outside) daily basis.
This is the story of Kate and Ellen Gulden. Kate is the mother of three children and when they are in their early adulthood she is diagnosed with cancer. Ellen, her daughter, has always been closer to her father and she lets her father talk her into giving up her job and apartment in New York to move home and care for her mother. Ellen does this reluctantly, but learns to appreciate the time she gets to spend learning who her mother is and building a relationship with her that she never had.
During this period Kate’s health declines at a rapid pace until it is decided that the chemotherapy is not effective and the focus needs to be on keeping her comfortable. Ellen does everything that she can to be a caregiver. She learns about the medications, helps her mother bathe, cooks, cleans, feeds her and tries to provide any way that she can. Her mother is in pain and goes through a struggle so that when she dies it is almost a relief to Ellen. Although soon a new trial is started when an autopsy shows that her mother died of a morphine overdoes and Ellen is suspected of assisting her mother in death.
Ellen bears this load, thinking to herself that she is covering for her father who must have done what he could to end his wife’s suffering. She is never actually indicted on the charges because the evidence isn’t enough. Yet the court does probe into whether she thinks it is acceptable to end someones life who is terminally ill and in pain. It raises hard questions and hard thoughts. And she answers as a caregiver saying her thoughts were about doing what needed to be done to take care of her mother during the next hour, and no more than that. That thinking that you support an idea and actually being able to follow through and end the life of someone you love are two very different things.
This was a very good book that dealt with hard issues. The relationships of mothers and daughters (and fathers), cancer and the experience of dying, and thoughts related to assisted suicide. It was a good read but it was difficult because of the issues that it dealt with. In writing this and looking for an image of the book cover I learned that this had been made into a movie about ten years ago. I would definitely read it first.
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