{"id":5005,"date":"2010-06-05T20:59:01","date_gmt":"2010-06-06T03:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=5005"},"modified":"2010-06-05T20:59:01","modified_gmt":"2010-06-06T03:59:01","slug":"the-writing-room-write-about-my-aging-mother-i-dont-think-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/the-writing-room-write-about-my-aging-mother-i-dont-think-so\/","title":{"rendered":"The Writing Room: Write About My Aging Mother? I Don’t Think So . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"
\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
\"Tinka
Within a few weeks of hip surgery, my aging mother was doing physical therapy at a skilled nursing facility. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Barbara Falconer Newhall, June 5, 2010
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Ten reasons why I’m finding it impossible to write about my 92-year-old mother, even though she’s all I can think about right now:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. I love my mother, and I don’t know how to write about that.<\/li>\n
  2. My mother is difficult, and I don’t know how to write about that.<\/li>\n
  3. My brothers can read, and they know about this blog.<\/li>\n
  4. My mother can read. So\u00a0can all six grandchildren.<\/li>\n
  5. My mother has osteoporosis, dementia and a messed-up stomach. She is losing herself, piece by piece, like\u00a0dandelion feathers floating off in the wind, and I don’t want to think about that.<\/li>\n
  6. My father is dead. My in-laws, Scott<\/a> and Ruth<\/a>, are dead. If my aging mother dies, there will be no more grown-ups left in my life.<\/li>\n
  7. I don’t want to be the grown-up.\n

    \"Tinka-Falconer
    My mother and her mother with my brother Jim in an era when hats were taken seriously. Photo by D.B. Falconer.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>\n
  8. If my mother can die, anybody can die, me included.<\/li>\n
  9. If I write about my mother I might\u00a0find out something about myself that I don’t want to know.<\/li>\n
  10. I’d rather grab a Clausthaler, curl up with the afghan that once belonged to my mother-in-law, and watch “House” re-runs. Except I’ve already watched every last one of \u00a0them in the three months since my mother broke her hip<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Note: My mother died on December 18, 2010. I still don’t know how to write about her. One of these days I’ll figure it out. You can read more about her at “Tinka Falconer. Her 93 Years.<\/a>”
    \n<\/strong><\/em>
    \n<\/em><\/p>\n

    \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Ten reasons why I\u2019m finding it impossible to write about my 92-year-old mother, even though she\u2019s all I can think about right now . . . . <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,52],"tags":[550,552,571,572,34,573,55,69],"class_list":["post-5005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-writing-reading","category-the-writing-room","tag-aging-parent","tag-broken-hip","tag-daughters","tag-dementia","tag-dont-miss","tag-mothers","tag-family-stories","tag-writing-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}