They left us everything
Subtitle: a memoir
By: Plum Johnson
Edition: First G.P. Putnam's Sons edition.
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 279
ISBN-13: 9780399184093
Subjects: Adult children of aging parents; Personal belongings; House furnishings; Families; Family; Parent and adult child; Homes and haunts; Caregivers; Aging parents; House selling; Psychological aspects; Family relationships; Biography; Care
Description: "A warm, heartfelt memoir of family, loss, and a house jam-packed with decades of goods and memories. After almost twenty years of caring for elderly parents--first for their senile father, and then for their cantankerous ninety-three-year old mother--author Plum Johnson and her three younger brothers have finally fallen to their middle-aged knees with conflicted feelings of grief and relief. Now they must empty and sell the beloved family home, twenty-three rooms bulging with history, antiques, and oxygen tanks. Plum thought: How tough will that be? I know how to buy garbage bags. But the task turns out to be much harder and more rewarding than she ever imagined. Items from childhood trigger difficult memories of her eccentric family growing up in the 1950s and '60s, but unearthing new facts about her parents helps her reconcile those relationships, with a more accepting perspective about who they were and what they valued. They Left Us Everything is a funny, touching memoir about the importance of preserving family history to make sense of the past, and nurturing family bonds to safeguard the future"--
Notes: "First edition published by Penguin Random House Canada, 2014"--Title page verso.
Table of contents: title: Never Mind the Dog; title: Part I. Endings; title: Mum's Will; title: Hornet's Nest; title: Point O' View; title: Dancing Till the End; title: Good-bye, Mum; title: Part II. Inheritance; title: Other Mothers; title: Unpacking the Past; title: A Fate Worse Than Death; title: Appraisals; title: Buried Treasure; title: Part III. Dispersal; title: Two Weddings and a Funeral; title: Dividing What Remains; title: Earthquake; title: Careful What You Wish For; title: Separation; title: Hong Kong Farewell; title: One Last Look.