PreOder the Books

Elinor Carlson, my mama, in her lovely room at Magnolia Manor, ALF.

By the time my mom moved in with me, not long after her second TIA stroke, I was the one running the whole machine myself, meals, cleaning, shopping, laundry, all of it, and I was in over my head. My mother, meanwhile, would ask me for a dust rag and limp around behind her walker trying to dust things herself. I didn’t have room in my head for dust. I could barely keep my own nose above the waterline.

And then there was the thing she did that I hated at the time and would give anything to have back now. When I’d take her anywhere, she walked so slowly with that walker she had time, real time, to survey the entire house on her way out the door. “There’s a coffee spill on the floor, Jodi. Maybe when we get back you can mop.” “The plants look awfully thirsty.” “Does the vacuum still work? Maybe we should get a new one.” Passive-aggressive, every bit of it, delivered at walker speed on our way out the front door. I white-knuckled through those comments back then. Now I laugh out loud thinking about them. I’d take a hundred more coffee-spill comments if it meant one more slow walk to the car with her.

PREORDER THE BOOK TODAY

All four books are available for PreOrder TODAY!

The Silent Gap gave stories like this pages to live on, to share with others, and to build connection with families.

The books, all four of them, are available now for preorder at thesilentgap.com and will be delivered to your door in December 2026.

It would be fantastic for you to share your coffee-spill comment in the comments below.

[The story in this post is from Chapter 2 of The Silent Gap]