Review: An engaging short story filled with details about aging that are heart wrenching
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 2, 2012
I was drawn in from the beginning meditation on aging and its challenges, terrors, and discontents, and the ironies of being a significantly aged child of a very elderly parent. It was great stuff -- well written, provocative, and true in my experience. Those thoughtful musings set readers up for the ambiance of the aging son's visit to his aged mother in a nursing home.  His mother is "in" her mind on this day and speaks with urgent purpose because she feels her death is very near and wants to pass on to her son the secrets of her life. There is complexity involved in her decision to tell the secrets -- and we can't know her well enough to be sure we understand her motivations. Is she unburdening herself or burdening her son?  Is the revealing information he needs or revealing information that he is old enough to handle on his own, whether he needs it or not? The ending is unexpectedly abrupt as I read the story but as time has passed it makes sense that it ends where and when it does -- what else was there to say?  And this is a short story rather than a novel.  Some reviewers have suggested that perhaps we should have been allowed to see what happened next.  I think those remarks are prompted by the abruptness of the ending rather than a desire to know what happened next. I think the abruptness left readers (me included) wanting more. But what more? The abruptness left me feeling sort of off-balance but not desiring to know what happened next. I wish the leave-taking had been as imbedded in thoughtfulness as was the beginning. I just wish the ending had been written better.  That's why I gave it four rather than five stars.