What About Mom? Being a 'Parent' to Your Own Parent

Summary

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"Don't worry," Jane Pasimeni Willie told her mom, back in the days when Ellie Pasimeni was healthy. "If you ever become frail, you can come live with me and I'll take care of you." Frail was just a word, vague and benign.

But when Ellie's Parkinson's disease got worse, frail began to mean something real: At 87, Ellie was wobbly and weak, her grip on her walker tenuous. She fell often, and even though she recovered from a broken hip in 2005, with each new fall since then she has healed more slowly and less completely. When she took a serious fall last January, it was clear to Jane and her husband, Ren, that Ellie could no longer live alone in her apartment, where she might lie on the floor for hours without anyone knowing.

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Extract

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What About Mom? Being a 'Parent' to Your Own Parent

Jane loves her mom, and her promise to bring Ellie home had been sincere. But it was no longer as simple as Jane had imagined. Ellie needed supervision and help with "activities of daily living" -- bathing, dressing, remembering to take nearly two dozen pills every day. Jane was a busy resource teacher at an elementary school and was still recovering from breast cancer treatment. Her brother and sister were supportive but far away.

So Jane, 55, began to seriously consider what Ellie's doctor had been suggesting for a couple of years -- that it was time for Ellie to move to...

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