ill parent Archives

The Mirror of One’s Soul

Samantha Williams August 1, 2025 2 Comments

It was the day after Christmas, during my third year in medical school. My mother and I sat in silence, the house still heavy with the remnants of holiday cheer. My two siblings had just left for their homes, five hours away, and she was visibly sad. Our family was scattered once more, each of us at different stages in our lives and careers.

Then the phone rang. My mother took the call right there in the room as the news played quietly on the television. I watched the TV screen, half-listening to her short, subdued answers. The call was so brief, and her responses so terse, that I couldn’t tell who had called, or why.

Wet skin

Jan Haag May 16, 2025 5 Comments

My mother doesn’t think she’s dying,
but she’s in the ER for the third time
in less than three months while

I’m 2,500 miles away on an island
in the middle of the sea, my sister
sitting with our shrinking mother

Missing

Pascale Waschnig May 9, 2025 7 Comments

I sit on the cold chair, looking at the floor.

“Yes, I know I’m depressed,” I say, then pause.

“It’s just that my mum went missing seven years ago, and she was never found.”

Another pause, my words falling away, my eyes lowering.

“Since then, I’ve never been the same,” I say. “It’s hard; it still is.”

We Are Here

Deb O'Rourke November 8, 2024 5 Comments

We are here.
At the foot of your bed,
I warm your limp feet in my hands.

A daughter cleans your mouth, a thirsty anemone.
Your only action is its eager suckle
of the sponge. My sister’s
offering is careful, sparse—
your retiring body can take little but air.

A Cascading, it is

Steve Wilson November 17, 2023 4 Comments

to watch his memory falter,
               fail. Light fades and falls. Dark
to watch his memory falter –
                             Cans of beans: gone. Toothpaste.
                             A shoe, bills, a sister –
to watch his memory falter,
fail. Light fades, and falls dark.

Fear of Flesh

Olivia Schreiber November 3, 2023 4 Comments

Sometimes I wish that skin and bones didn’t exist. Of course, that would be impossible—the skeleton is the scaffold for our bodies, while the skin is the insulation for vital organs such as the heart, kidneys and bowels. Without our skin and bones, we’d be mere piles of goo on the floor.

Bones are too complicated, for the simple reason that there are too many. As a first-year medical student studying anatomy, I agonized over learning the grooves and prominences where the muscles originate and insert into the bones. I always struggled to find these so-called bony landmarks on our simulated patients.

And flesh…the skin is even more horrifying than the bones beneath it.

My Mother’s Keeper

Marjorie Ordene August 11, 2023 13 Comments

It is a mitzvah to take care of your parents: “Honor thy father and thy mother.” And caring for people comes naturally to me. I’m a physician; this is what I do.

But when my father looked to me to cure my eighty-five-year-old mother’s dementia, saying, “You’re the doctor! Help her!” I knew he was asking too much.

And yet. How could I stand idly by while my mother’s mental acuity slowly drained away?

Role Reversal

Brooke Upchurch May 5, 2023 18 Comments

The year 2020 was a lot of things for a lot of people. Chaotic, exhausting, heartbreaking, hopeful. It was a year in which my immense privilege—as a healthy, educated white woman—protected me from much of the pain born by others.

And while it was many of those things (especially chaotic) for me, it was also the year I started medical school. The year I moved from LA to Austin, driving across California, Utah and Texas in the process. The year I read fifty-four fiction books to escape the monotony of lockdown.

And it was the year my dad died.

Living and Letting Go in the ICU

Margie Hodges Shaw February 3, 2023 13 Comments

Driving from the Atlanta airport, I arrived at the hospital ICU where my mother had been admitted the day before for trouble breathing. This was the hospital where my siblings and I were born and where our father died. This was the hospital featured in The New York Times following the coronavirus outbreak in March 2020. The hospital still sees record numbers of COVID admissions, and I expected the staff to show signs of exhaustion and numbness to personal tragedy.

My brother was at our mother’s bedside, as he had been from the beginning. The critical-care attending physician was also present.

“Does the hospital have a palliative-care unit?” I asked.

Contented, Though Demented

Karen Curran September 16, 2022 6 Comments

The last two years of my father’s life were interesting. Our previous roles were reversed: Dad was now the child, and I the adult. I moved him to a new city and state, getting him close enough to keep an eye on him. He was already suffering from dementia, a realization I came to after he had forty thousand dollars stolen from him.

That’s right. Forty thousand dollars.

Double Take

Syona Satwah September 13, 2022 7 Comments

Sauntering into the dark hospital room, I was dazzled by my patient’s radiant smile. It spanned her face and crinkled her eyes; her crooked teeth peeked through her lips, making her seem approachable and kind.

“Hi, Ms. Radha, I’m a third-year medical student,” I said. “Is this an okay time to chat? I’m here on behalf of the psychiatry department.”

What Do You Want Your Life to Look Like?

Sarah Stumbar June 3, 2022 16 Comments

In the first months of medical school, we’re taught that patient autonomy should be one of a physician’s guiding tenets. The doctor provides diagnoses, prognoses and treatment plans, but ultimately it’s up to patients to make decisions about their own care.

As a family doctor, I often tell patients: “Only you can know what the right decision is for you. I’m here to provide information and recommendations and then to support your decision.”

But over the past year, as my father’s memory deteriorated and his life drew to a close, I learned about the ways in which our medical system limits patient autonomy.

During his last months, my father said repeatedly, “My brain is in chaos.”

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