caregivers

Remember Geocities and the early web--when people poured their hearts out amidst comic sans and crudely animated gifs? One pioneering blogger was Denise Cooper, who for several years kept a daily online diary about her life, her family, and especially caring for her combative and agitated demented mother in her home. In our opinion its one of the great diaries--a real slice of American life. Our excerpt is naturally somewhat artificial,and edited for space and continuity. The original is well worth surfing for. Ironically, while Ms. Cooper wrote frequently about how difficult it would be for her to deal with her mother's death, she ended up (spoiler alert) blogging about her own fatal lung cancer up until her very last days, and her mother survived her by several years.

My son became suddenly ill when he was 14 days old. I stood there in the emergency department of the local hospital and watched my precious son as he lay on the gurney that seemed to swallow his tiny body.

It’s 2:00 A.M. and my mom has responded to my cries into the night. She works hard to get my feet lifted up, fetch the medication and do the best to tell bad jokes to crack my focus on the pain. Is it the memory of a ten year old child with a broken ankle? No, it’s the story of a 40 year old...