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64 reviews for:
Feeding My Mother: Comfort and Laughter in the Kitchen as My Mom Lives with Memory Loss
Jann Arden
4.21 AVERAGE
64 reviews for:
Feeding My Mother: Comfort and Laughter in the Kitchen as My Mom Lives with Memory Loss
Jann Arden
4.21 AVERAGE
The author's experience of being a caregiver to her mother is somewhat different than my own was, but there were several times when phrases or incidents jumped out at me and brought back memories. These kind of memoirs are helpful in letting those in similar situations know that there are people out there who understand.
emotional
fast-paced
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
fast-paced
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
I bought "Feeding My Mother" by Jann Arden in hardcover when it first came out, and brought it with me to read when I travelled to my parents' house for Christmas that year (2017). I didn't get very far into it before I realized that reading a book about dealing with aging parents -- no matter how uplifting -- might not be the best idea while I was "home" visiting my OWN aging parents. So I set the book aside and marked it as "I'll get back to it someday" on Goodreads. ;)
"Someday" finally arrived. I recently picked up the book again.
For those who aren't familiar with Jann Arden, she's is a Canadian national treasure -- a multi-talented singer/songwriter/actress/media personality. She is one year younger than me and grew up in the same part of the country as me (the Prairies). She's written several books, including an earlier (2011) memoir, "Falling Backwards," which I read and loved.
She also has a great presence on social media, and this book draws on her diary-like Facebook posts between 2014 and 2017, as she dealt with the declining health of her aging parents. By 2014, her father had had several strokes, and her mother was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, evolving into someone Jann didn't recognize anymore. Their house was 100 yards from Jann's on a rural property outside of Calgary, and Jann began cooking for her parents whenever she wasn't on the road. (Recipes are included. :) )
The book is funny, sad, reflective, wise, poignant, compassionate and heartbreaking. Sample passage, on grief, from August 2, 2016:
"Someday" finally arrived. I recently picked up the book again.
For those who aren't familiar with Jann Arden, she's is a Canadian national treasure -- a multi-talented singer/songwriter/actress/media personality. She is one year younger than me and grew up in the same part of the country as me (the Prairies). She's written several books, including an earlier (2011) memoir, "Falling Backwards," which I read and loved.
She also has a great presence on social media, and this book draws on her diary-like Facebook posts between 2014 and 2017, as she dealt with the declining health of her aging parents. By 2014, her father had had several strokes, and her mother was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, evolving into someone Jann didn't recognize anymore. Their house was 100 yards from Jann's on a rural property outside of Calgary, and Jann began cooking for her parents whenever she wasn't on the road. (Recipes are included. :) )
The book is funny, sad, reflective, wise, poignant, compassionate and heartbreaking. Sample passage, on grief, from August 2, 2016:
When you don't argue with grief like a drunk husband, much good can come from its stillness. Reflection is so important, time alone, solitude, reckoning. You can't be your best self when you're submerged in useless busy-ness...
Instead of telling discomfort to go away, I'm going to invite it in. I've learned that it seems to not really like that. It's more used to people who hide from it.
I say let fear and grief sit at your table. Talk to them, give them a cold drink and a sandwich. They simply want to be acknowledged and not ignored. When you ignore them, they just hang around longer.
In addition to being a pleasure to read, the original hardcover is a pleasure to look at. It's beautiful, visually -- the layout, the typography, the photographs. I also have an e-pub version on my Kobo e-reader. To my surprise, the e-version is longer than the original by about 30%: the hardcover ends after a post from February 1, 2017; the e-version has 35 more entries and ends with August 11, 2018. It's all good. :)
5 stars on Goodreads. I have a feeling I will be returning to this book, more than once, over the coming years, as I navigate my own journey with my own aging parents.
This is a beautiful book, and I don't just mean that the physical book with it's gorgeous cover and pictures are beautiful, but the words are as well. I'm not sure how Jann is able to convey such hope and light in such a difficult situation but she does. This is absolutely worth a read for anyone, whether you are currently caring for someone suffering from memory loss or not. Also, the recipes all seem great, though to be fair I have only tried the banana peanut butter pancakes which were delicious and I will definitely be making them again.
It's hard to rate something so personal and heartbreaking. This is her life, her world, and her grief. But, despite how short the book is, I found it too repetitive. My heart aches for her loss and what she had to go through. I kept wishing I could give her and her mother both a hug. Alzheimer's is a real bitch.
The way Jann Arden lets us in to her personal life is wonderful. I laughed and cried. I understood a lot of her personal struggles and learned so much from her. I can’t wait to try the recipes she has included in this book.
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Can you enjoy a book about something that hits so close to home? I felt as though Jann was reading my heart, speaking into my memories of the years I walked alongside my mother in her season of living with Alzheimer’s. I am thankful for this honest accounting of the struggle amidst the joy.
Delightful, heartbreaking, funny, insightful. Loved it.