The shelf life of ashes
Subtitle: a memoir
By: Hollis Giammatteo
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2016
Place of publication: Berkeley, CA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 255
ISBN-13: 9781631520471
Subjects: Biography; Aging; Aging parents
Description: When Hollis Giammatteo sought a job working with the elderly, she did so with the intention of finding models of healthy aging. And she failed. In The Shelf Life of Ashes, Giammatteo chronicles her experiences with her wards, as well as the trip she embarks upon when her mother, who is convinced she is dying, entreats her to come "home." Trips back, traumas triggered, identity in crisis, equanimity gained--this quasi-comic, concentrated journey engages the reader in the process of naming and facing the tasks involved in growing old, while asking a simple but weighted question: Can aging be done well?
Table of contents: title: A complicated journey; title: The map of aging well; title: A medley of awkward changes and flagging self-esteem; title: Helen; title: Bloody resignation; title: Role reversal; title: Identity and other foolish matters; title: Alice; title: John; title: The quandried self; title: The back room, or how not to die; title: The disappointment of failed connections; title: Riddles abound in resolution; title: My Christian science; title: The strange case of mother's knee; title: The claudication of John; title: The perfidy of things; title: Love and final trips remembered; title: Blue toes, silver ashes; title: The shelf life of ashes.