12/01/01

When Kathleen Bosworth's mother suffered a stroke, she began to look for answers to hundreds of questions she had regarding her mother's health, and the prognosis for the future. She became incredibly frustrated with what she wasn't finding out. The multitude of unanswered questions lead to her journal and the writing of Your Mother Has Suffered a Slight Stroke.

Bosworth's story is a real narrative of trouble and the day-to-day tasks of getting by and getting through. It's the practical side of all of those dramatic dying scenes in the movies. Bosworth gives the reader her feelings openly and honestly and gives us the facts. What do you do when your money runs out? How do you take care of your parents in a situation like this? How do you take care of yourself? "I couldn't wait to mail out the paperwork when I finally finished. I just wanted to get rid of it" (91).

These are our feelings and all the questions we have to ask ourselves at some time. Bosworth does her best to honestly and openly tell her story about dealing with her mother's stroke and her own feelings about her mother's mortality, and her own. We've all faced it, or will, and narratives such as Bosworth's give us a kind of naked glimpse of our own experience to come. Bosworth's story gives us hope. We will think of her experience and her willingness to share so much with us when we are in a similar situation. And, we all will be.