Adventures in Mother-Sitting by Doreen Cox is truly a love story. No, not a love story in the boy-girl romantic sense but a story about the love between a mother and a daughter. Author Doreen Cox shares her experience as a "care bear" during the last three years of her mother's life and how she learned to live with her mother's slow progression from a viable, interesting, lovable, and happy woman to a woman overcome by dementia unable to handle even her most basic bodily needs. And Ms. Cox doesn't shirk away from those details. She repeatedly quotes her mother's mantra: "You just do what you have to do." Ms. Cox starts out this story as her mother's daughter and friend and roommate. She gradually becomes her care bear and then her "mommy." Though her mother always could articulate a thank you and big toothless smile for everything Ms. Cox did for her, she became like a child thanking her mommy. Ms. Cox gave up her as a career group counselor at an alternative school for … [Read more...]