AUTHOR CHAT: Alexandra Grabbe's "Seeing Joy"

Is it possible to see joy in life's hardest moments?

I sit down with memoirist Alexandra to talk about her memoir, Seeing Joy: A Story of Life, Death, and What Comes Next. We dig into how Alexandra’s story began as a caregiving blog in 2006, written first for friends and family and then embraced by strangers who recognized their own fear and tenderness in her honesty. She shares what it took to transform that real-time writing into a publishable memoir, including years of rejection from traditional publishing and the creative breakthroughs that came from adding family letters and her mother’s own unpublished manuscript. If you’ve ever wondered how memoir gets made, this is the unglamorous, deeply human version. 

Then we go to the heart of it: hospice care at home, the emotional calculus of choosing home over a nursing facility, and the unexpected moments of grace that arrive alongside the mess. Alexandra describes her mother’s vivid “visitors” near the end of life and what hospice workers call “visioning,” plus how that shifted her mother from fearing death as “the end” to finding a kind of peace. If you’re searching for a clearer way to talk about dying with dignity and still make room for joy, this one stays with you. 

If this conversation helps, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s caring for someone, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. What part of end-of-life caregiving do you wish people were more honest about?

Purchase Alexandra Grabbe's "Seeing Joy"

Purchase Alexandra's father's memoir "Émigré"

Xx, Alex

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Transcript

Welcome And Memoir Premise

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to brief and bookwell, your women's memoir podcast. I'm your host, Alex Frenchcraft, Modification at the end of the life at the BDF. Today I'm talking with Alexander Gravity, Alexander of the Memoir, Steve Joy, a story of life, death, and welcome to life. Hi, Alexandra. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Well, thank you for the invitation. It's a real pleasure to be here with you. I thought that your memoir was lovely and refreshingly honest about an extraordinarily difficult situation. Caring for a parent at the end of their life can be full of unexpected twists, moments, admissions. You write about your mother's visitors, people from her past, the joy in seeing them and the truth they inspire, while you yourself juggle the physical, emotional, and mental toll of caring for and helping usher your mother to whatever is next. While also running a bed and breakfast and being a wife and being a mother, all the things, I think a lot of people will resonate with your experience and feel less alone in their own thoughts and feelings. But regardless of where we are in our own lives, caring for our parents or our children or a partner or maybe even just ourselves, your memoir gives us all permission to sit with how we feel, with the unknowns, with the difficult moments, and most importantly, see the joy. That's a beautiful way of putting it. Thank you. Before we get into the memoir, let's talk about the process. I was so happy to discover that this started as a blog. You blogged in real time as you were caring for your mother. Talk to me a little bit about why you decided to sit down and write the blog and then why and how it became your memoir.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Well, I wanted um, I started the blog because I wanted uh friends and family to know how my mother was doing because she was 96, which is a grand old age. I had really no experience in caregiving. So I was sort of discovering it by writing about it online in my blog. And what was really surprising was that, of course, family members were following the blog, but strangers started following and they would leave comments. They were so enthusiastic and they said, you know, please keep going. This is so meaningful to us, we're doing the same thing and so forth. This was early on in 2006 when blogs were the thing to do. It was brand new. It was, you know, before Substack and all that. And um, so that was very rewarding to realize that it what I was writing meant something to people.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Was there ever a moment of hesitation where you were like, ooh, do I want strangers to know about this? Or was it just purely joy in connecting?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

No, it was it was joy in connecting and also the idea that I could help them. That you know, they would take something from what I was writing. And then what happened is that someone who actually called herself a fan, she suggested turning it into a book. Okay. And I had not thought of that in the beginning. So I started thinking more and more along those lines.

Turning A Blog Into Memoir

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Talk to me about like how that went about. Blogging is obviously one way of writing, that's a writing style, and then you know, transforming it into a memoir. What did you have to do to sit down and do that?

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Well, you know, it was a really long process because my mom passed away in November of 2006. Immediately started thinking about turning it into a book, but I mean, I really didn't know what I was doing at that point. It was a little bit challenging. I I think I wrote to uh like a hundred agents. It was an agent who was had quite a good reputation, and she wanted to represent me. So I was so happy. But what happened that I didn't know is having an agent represent you doesn't necessarily mean your book is going to be published because all of the editors that she knew were afraid of the topic of death. They just simply didn't want to touch it because this was in 2008. Okay. Okay. They felt that it wouldn't sell, you know, the they're always thinking in terms of what will sell. So that was very disappointing to me, as you can imagine. So I sort of put the manuscript away for a while and I'd go back to it from time to time. And then one of the agents had mentioned that it was too much like a blog. So I took that tip and I worked at making it more, well, less like a blog, shall we say? And um then maybe I'd say 10 years later, around that, I decided to consult a developmental editor who was Mira Bartok, who wrote The Memory Palace. And she suggested that I should get the reader out of the bedroom, that too much was in the bedroom, which was a wonderful suggestion. And I really took it to heart. By that time, I had discovered and had time to go through some of the letters that my mother had written, because she always kept everything. And in the back of her closet, I discovered an autobiographical novel that she had written, but never published. So then I thought, well, maybe I need to add more vignettes from our life together over the years, as well as adding a few excerpts from her novel. And gradually the what I had written transformed into something completely different from the first manuscript that I had submitted to the agent and that had been refused. So that was, you know, that was sort of exhilarating to feel like, oh, this is right now.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yeah. And and you had to give yourself that time and space to be able to let it transform and change into what it now is. Yes. When you wrote the blog, I didn't get a chance to go through all of it. Were you as upfront about your feelings, or was it more about just the day-to-day, this is how mom's doing?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

I think I was very upfront about what was going on because I wanted people to share it with me. Yeah. But I mean, I was thinking at first that it was just friends and family. So I I think that I was I was very honest in what I was experiencing and what my mother was experiencing.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Okay. So that wasn't something that you added. I think that's really interesting that you had the foresight to provide that in your blog too, because I think nowadays people are a little bit more willing and open to share the harder feelings and the harder parts. But I feel like in 2006, like everything was still so shiny and happy and perfect. So your blog must have really been one of the first ones that was like, let me tell you how this really is. I can love my mother and also kind of be waiting for her to die because living in this limbo is a really difficult thing. And I don't know how to do it. You know, how can we know how to do that?

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Well, you learn as you go along.

Publishing Roadblocks And Finding A Press

SPEAKER_00 6:50

I guess you have no other choice, huh? Talk to me about that feeling when they said, Okay, Alexandra, we're gonna publish this.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Well, that was that was very exciting. Um, and I can tell you how that happened. I was organizing um a book fair here in Arlington, where I live outside Boston, and one of the authors whom I didn't know, I purchased some of the books that were available at the book fair. She published, she was an author who had published um Randy Susan Meyer. She had published with the traditional big five, but she decided that that takes so long she didn't want to do that. So she went with an independent press and she recommended this independent press, which is named Kohler Books. So I contacted them and right away they were interested. And um, that's how it happened.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

And do you feel like you had more say in the creative process of picking the title or picking the picture, the painting that's on the front of the book?

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Well, there was no challenge about the title at all. Okay. I was very grateful that um the designer came up with uh I had sent the portrait of my mom, which some people don't realize that's a portrait of my mom. Um, and it's mentioned in in the memoir. And I had sent the portrait and I'd said that I imagined something with stars, but I couldn't really, you know, I'm not a designer, so I didn't know where the stars should go or anything. And um the designer, the actual painting is more grayish, and she made the cover sort of brownish with the stars that really stand out. So I was really very pleased with the way that turned out.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah, it's beautiful. I was wondering why you did decide to go with the portrait, which I definitely remember reading the memoir instead of a photograph.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Well, there was never it was never a question of using a photograph, actually. You just knew in your heart this was it. I knew in my heart that that was what should be on the cover.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

And then talk to me about finding the phrase seeing joy because your blog was called Bye B's Bedside. Bye B's Bedside.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yes, okay. And for like 15 years I thought of it in my mind as Bye B's bedside.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

When I was, you know, I I wasn't working on it all the time because as I had a job. You know, I was running a bed and breakfast, but I would go in from time to time and fiddle with it. So it came about that one day I went into my mom's bedroom the way I always did, and I was sort of in a hurry because I had a million things to do, and I suddenly I realized that something was going on that was unusual, and she was looking up at the ceiling, and I realized that I'd interrupted a conversation she was having with someone. Right. But no one was there. And she's the one who said, I see joy. So that's where the title came from that she was she was seeing joy. And I thought that was a wonderful idea.

The Title Origin And Cover Choice

SPEAKER_00 9:32

It's a good juxtaposition to this really kind of difficult, dark end-of-life thing that editors don't want to touch. Like maybe the end of someone's life isn't this scary thing that we all are associating, you know, it to be it to be. Maybe it's something that can be beautiful and joyful. And I think that's what your memoir lends to us. That's the experience and perspective. That doesn't mean that it was always easy, which is why I really appreciate your memoirs, but that doesn't mean that it takes away from the joy. So let's not get into it. Your memoir is obviously focused on your mother, but you mentioned your father, and he was the reason that you and your you came from France, you were living in France, and you came home, and that's why you started the bed and breakfast. Walk me through just the kind of that first transition.

Family Backstory And Returning From France

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Well, my husband and I moved back from France in '97, and my dad was he was 95, and he was obviously at the end of his life. And I decided that my my husband was working, he's my husband is Swedish, and he was working in France, and he had like 10 years he needed to finish in France to be able to have his retirement. So I was very fortunate that at that time in 97, he agreed to accompany me to the United States, which was a total, you know, adventure for him. Sure. And um, you know, live in the United States and get a fiance visa before we got married and and move. So we did that and we took care of my mostly my dad at that point, but he was still mobile and like we'd have lunch together, you know, and dinner together, and I'd cook, and my dad loved everything that I made him, cooked him French dishes. He was delighted by that. He passed away in '99. Okay. So then it was just my mom. And my mom was still going strong. She was, you know, taking courses at the library, and she'd go into town with her walker, and you know, she she was very vibrant still. And that went on for a number of years. So, you know, when you consider that the period that I'm writing about in the memoir is 2006, that's a long time. Where we were living in the house with her in the beginning, we were living in a cottage nearby, and then she said she didn't really like to be alone. So could we come and move into the big house with her? So we we did that, and it was a little bit challenging because my mom was intellectual, and my husband is also intellectual. So they had a great time chatting at the dinner table. Um, not always things that I totally understood, but um, you know, because he was he was a history teacher, so he he knew a lot of things that interested her, and she knew a lot of things that interested him. So that worked out really well. So then it wasn't until February of 2006 she never she wasn't sick at all. Because frequently, when you have this type of memoir, somebody is usually has cancer. Right. She wasn't sick, she wasn't ill. She had bursitis of the knee that sent her to the hospital. So she was in the hospital for like, I want to say, maybe five days. And then I was told that she would be going to a rehabilitation center. So she was sent to a real rehabilitation center. At the rehabilitation center, where she was for maybe two weeks, she failed at rehabilitation. I don't know if she decided I don't want to do this or what it was, but she did not get rehabilitated. And so the idea was that she was gonna be bedridden from then on. Right. So this was it was quite interesting because I was asked to come into the office of the person in charge of this um rehabilitation center because they had a wing that was for nursing as well. The woman said to me, you know, now we can move your mother into the nursing wing if you if you want. And I immediately knew I didn't want to do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

I hadn't had much experience with nursing homes. I'd been to a nursing home in Sweden where my my um husband's mother was staying. And I had after that, I had when I came back to the US, I had explored some nursing homes, just sort of walking through them. And I just didn't want to do that to my mother. So I decided right then and there, no, we'll take her home. She wants to be home and we will help her to live and hopefully die with dignity.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

So that's what we did. And so your mother never explicitly said, I don't want to be in a nursing home.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

No, I just knew, but she also said she wanted to be home. You know, this is what everybody wants. People want to stay and in their homes, usually.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Of course, if that's an option. You have siblings, correct? I have a brother. So when your father first needed someone to come care for him, why was it you?

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Well, my brother lives in western Massachusetts. He had already a caregiving situation with his wife because one of their children had Down syndrome. Okay. So it wasn't a question of him doing it. And also, I think also frequently it's the daughters who assume it is frequently, but we sometimes I think we just have to ask ourselves why. Yeah, yeah. That that was why it just seemed like the normal thing. And it worked out for us because I had been wanting to move back to the United States for many years. Okay. And my husband was curious about living in the United States. And um Cape Cod, who wouldn't want to live at Cape Cod?

SPEAKER_00 14:50

I know it does, it sounds dreamy and beautiful. And so, this entire time that your mother's living with you, the home, the big house, is a bed and breakfast as well. There are people coming in and out?

Rehab Failure And Choosing Home Care

SPEAKER_01 15:00

That not the whole time. That started in 2004, and we did it for like a dozen years. Okay, what was the thought process behind that? After my dad passed away, I had gotten a job. I guess it was before he passed away. I'd gotten a job at Town Hall, where I was working as some kind of secretary, planning board secretary. And then after that, I heard about a job working as an assistant to a famous author who lives in Wealthley. Okay. So I worked for her for two years, and then I decided that I was going to spend time editing my dad's memoir. Yes. I edited my dad's memoir because he had published, you know, my mom was a had worked as an editor. She was a professional woman, and she had worked as an editor for for a number of years. And so she helped him because he was, I didn't mention that, but he was from Russia. He was Russian. She she participated in this this book, but it was just the beginning of his life. It was his childhood and his escape from Russia at the revolution, which is a fascinating story. But he also had written about four years that he spent in Denmark and then coming to the United States in his story of you know being a uh a miner and in a silver mine in Colorado and um trying to write a screenplay. Actually, I think he did participate in a screenplay in in Hollywood, and he was teaching himself English at the same time because he spoke French and Russian, but not English. So anyway, yeah. So I published his memoir. It was it's called Emmy Gray 95 Years in the Life of a Russian Cat.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

I I found it on Amazon, so it's on Amazon. We'll link that because I want to get back to you opening the bed and breakfast. You open this bed and breakfast, and at any point when your mother comes home after failing rehabilitation, is there a moment when you're like, all right, we need to not invite people into our home? Did that thought ever cross your mind or no? Was it something that you guys kind of needed the income? So you just had to make it work.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Well, she was very social, so she liked the idea of it being a bed and breakfast. And, you know, if I could have brought the guests in to meet her, she would have been really happy because she was very talkative and she loved to explore what other people were like. Um, but you know, I I refrained from doing that, and I what I would worry because her bedroom was under one of the suites. And sometimes when she was awake in the middle of the night, I was afraid she'd wake up the guests and they wouldn't want to come back, but that never happened. So that was good.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Did you have to do a lot of work to the house to get it transformed into a bed and breakfast?

SPEAKER_01 17:40

After my mom passed away, we did renovation. Okay, okay. And so we created because in Wellslet you're allowed to have three um rooms um without I mean you can have more, but there are all kinds of details are required. Okay. So we just stayed with three, and um, so we renovated creating a room with a private bath where you know that's what people are interested in.

Running A Bed And Breakfast

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yes, yes. Okay, very, very but that's the type of thing you learn as you go along. Right, right. Getting back to your father's memoir, that seems like such a beautiful opportunity, knowing your family history, having your father tell this really fascinating and incredible story that was a gift that I think he gave you and your family. And it seems like you were able to receive that gift from your mother and also give us the gift of your mother and her her life. That was one thing that I was really struck about as I was reading it. These things that you were learning and discovering about your mom that you might have never discovered had you not had this experience with her. Kind of some big, big things.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah, that's true. I mean, I I knew, like for instance, that she had had an abortion and I had never spoken to her about it. I knew about it because she had told my daughters. She had spoken with my daughters when I wasn't there. So there was the opportunity I could see that she was willing to talk, and so I asked her about it and what it was like and how it happened and so forth when she was 25, I think.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

And living in New York, and how she'd found a doctor who was willing to do an abortion and so forth. So that was one thing that I I had never dared to ask her. Sure. So I found out all about that. And it was also, you know, you don't really think about learning about your parents' life before you're born. And so there was all of that to discover too, what it was like growing up in in Montclair, New Jersey. And she was she was very determined. She was the first member of her family to go to a college, and she took an extra, I don't know if it was a year or a half year, but at a private school that would help her get into Vassar. Okay. So um that was quite enterprising of me.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Right. It feels like you got to experience your mother, not as just your mother, but as a woman, living absolute life. And so, how has that impacted you when it comes to sharing yourself with your children?

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Well, that's an interesting question. You know, I think people wait for questions, and if there aren't questions, they don't necessarily provide the answers. So I know that with one of my daughters, she did ask questions, and I was very honest with her because I had divorced her father. So she wanted to know about that, and so I explained to her all my reasons and so forth. But in general conversation, that you have to find the right moment, you know? Yeah. And that was the same with my mother. At some other time, I might not have been able to talk to her about the abortion.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Right. Yeah, it was just kind of this thing that presented itself. Yeah. Exactly. What was your relationship like with your mother growing up? And then before this experience happened, because it seems like you guys had quite the transformation in this short period of time.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Well, she wasn't the easiest person to have as a mother, you know. For one thing, after I was five, she went back to work. And when I was an adolescent, she wanted to participate in my life. So, how she saw participating in my life, since she was an editor, she wanted to help me with my essays, which is not necessarily something that you're an adolescent you want. Right. And she also had distinct ideas of whom I should date. This young man was the perfect person to have over to dinner, which she actually did sometimes was invite random people.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Knock, knock, knock. Alexandra, open the door. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

So um, you know, that wasn't easy. And um, then when I moved to Europe, I married a Frenchman and moved to Europe in 69, I think. And her therapist told her that I had moved to Europe to put an ocean between us. No, I fell in love, you know. So she wasn't always easy. And it's really interesting because my brother had a very different reaction. Reaction to her. We did not react the same way. Maybe she did not try and interfere. Maybe she learned with me what to do and what not to do. But she behaved differently with my brother.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

And what's the age gap between you and your brother? Three years. Okay, so not too much, but you know, you were a young woman, and I can only imagine the pressure she felt as an enterprising woman of that time. We all still feel pressure to be perfect. And as women, we have to jump 10 feet higher when, you know, all that still exists, but I can't imagine kind of being at the forefront of that and how that would affect her mothering, especially a young girl. It seems like her being a working mom did have a fairly large impact on you. You wrote about how you knew from a young age that you did not want to do that. You you were missing a connection or time and attention from your mom. And so you knew I'm not going to be that type of mother. I want to be a stay-at-home mother for as long as I can, or a more present mother. Absolutely.

Hidden Family Stories Unearthed

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Well, she wasn't there, you know, when I had, if there would be a crisis, she wasn't there. And um, so that really made me decide. I mean, I can remember in particular, there was a dog fight, and um I had to rescue our dog and you know, was bitten. And what could I do? Well, I could talk to her over the phone, and um, you know, that just was not satisfactory to me. So I just said to myself, I'm not gonna do this to myself.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Yeah, and you write about that. I'm guessing that's something that you added during the from blog to memoir section. But were there any good qualities that you can pinpoint?

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Well, she was a very loving mother, you know, and I think I was able to behave the same way with my children.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

So when she was there with you and present, you just you did feel her love. Absolutely, absolutely. Do you feel though that when you were caring for her, were there any moments of closure or was there an aspect of her needing to apologize for I didn't really because you know she did her best, and that's after having been a mother myself, that's all a mother can do is do her best.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

And you know, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. But um, you know, I I I didn't expect her to apologize.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

She starts having these visitors. You call them ghosts at some point, they're kind of ghost-ish.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Well, when I use the word ghost, it was actually in jest, you know, because there is humor in the book. And I was talking to to my husband about it. This is really funny. Look what's happening. Ghosts in the next room, you know, something like that. And I guess I was more open to this type of thing than a lot of people might be because I had an experience in France. I had a boyfriend, former boyfriend, who had passed away. And you know the feeling that when you know people really well and you feel like somebody's coming up behind you, but you know it's your daughter and not your son or something. And I knew that this was this former boyfriend's spirit that was there in the room. And it didn't last long, but it was like he'd come to make sure I was okay, and he wanted me to know that he was okay. That was the message I received. So, you know, this is a really, really, really unexpected, weird thing to happen to you. So I got on the phone and I called my mother and she said, Oh, you better get a therapist and quick. Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Little did she know not at all.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

So when this started happening in her bedroom, at first she was terrified, and she would I'd find her hiding under the covers, and you know, I'd say, What's what's going on? And she'd tell me about the the people who had been there. At first it was not distinct people that she that I recognized as someone she knew or had known rather, but little by little it became very distinct, and like there was her sister who came back a lot. Her older sister, she had two sisters, and this was her elder sister who was there frequently. And her father came and her grandmother came, and two roommates were frequently visitors. So she would tell me, you know, and she'd say what they were wearing, and you know, it was it was it was very strange. So I would just listen, yeah, talk to her about it, and I eventually started writing things down because it was so incredible what was going on.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Right. It was so specific. It seemed like sometimes there were almost like dinner parties, and but then sometimes it would be like one person, but all very intimate and all very real. I mean, very real, at least from when I was reading it.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

I believed it. So when you would hear what she was saying, like I can remember there was one time when she was playing bridge, and I couldn't really, you know, for a long time I was trying to figure out what was going on, and she was playing bridge, obviously, with some people in her room, but there was nobody in her room. Right. It was very strange.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

But your father never came, but you had the psychic come. Walk me through that.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Well, the my father came at the very end. Okay, that's right. He was he was the last visitor, he and her beloved grandmother. They were the very last visitors who came to her. Yeah. Well, that was my husband's idea. He he thought that, you know, it would be interesting to know how long we had to stay there because you know, when we had moved back from Europe, we had a bucket list of places we wanted to go and things we wanted to do. And we honestly did not think that my parents would live both to be 97. So that was came as a surprise.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Right, right. And so the psychic comes, he c sort of tells you, buckle in, she's gonna be here for a while longer. And you're like, Okay, great. How were you emotionally navigating that?

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Well, sometimes well, sometimes not so well. And depending on how long we had been there, you know, towards the end, it was much harder because she was more demanding, she was her circadian rhythm tanked, and so she would, you know, stay awake for three days, and I would be called into her room regularly. Yeah, and then she'd sleep for three days. So that was that was really exhausting as a you know, because I also had to keep doing the bed and breakfast all this time.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Right, right. Did you have someone working with you that would help you clean the rooms, or was it all you? And you were cooking, you were providing maybe like a continental breakfast situation and then dinner? How what what were what were you doing?

SPEAKER_01 28:25

I was cooking breakfast, and um, but my husband was helping me. He wasn't doing the cooking, but he was helping me with the cleaning and and just sort of the general chit-chat with the guests and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

You ran it together.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Yeah, and we didn't have that many guests because there were only three rooms.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Okay. So it's manageable. And you likened taking care of your mother to taking care of like a newborn or a toddler, which I I laughed because I'm just sort of out of that phase. I have a three-year-old as well. Um, it still happens in the middle of the night. So I felt exhausted with you.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

It was kind of strange because my son, who's actually in Los Angeles, and his wife had just had a baby, first grandchild. Yeah. So he would send me emails about his life taking care of a baby, and I would send him emails about my life taking care of my elderly mother.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Was that like a bonding experience for you and your son a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Well, we've always been very close. So it was and he had lived for a long time with my mother um in summer because he had summer jobs on Cape Cod. And so he knew her very well. And he was, you know, very grateful that I was taking care of her.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Let's talk a little bit more about this caregiving aspect of it. I mean, you don't hold back, you share the physical toll. I mean, and the worries like checking your mother for bed sores and understanding your limitations, trusting the the people that came into your home. Luckily, it seemed like because of medical insurance, that was all paid for and covered, or was any of that kind of coming out of your pocket or your mother's?

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Yeah, it was covered by Medicare. And you know, we were really fortunate because so my mom had the bursitis, I think, in February and came home towards the end of March. And immediately in April, her doctor recommended hospice. So we had hospice from April. So the whole seven months that I wrote about in the memoir, I did have someone coming in Monday through Friday. And then when they saw that I was also running a bed and breakfast, they were very sweet and said, Well, you need more help on the weekend, we'll send someone as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

So there was someone who would come for an hour every day. That was just wonderful. I learned so much from the hospice workers. We were really fortunate to have them.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

It wasn't just caring for your mom, like her physical state, but I loved hearing the way that they treated your mom. I I think it was particularly Lisa stands out as a character in your memoir, who came in and she just seemed to bring this beautiful energy with her and she knew how to talk to your mom. And she, I think that's a gift. I, you know, I'm so glad people like that exist because this seems to be a really difficult job. I mean, helping people and helping the families as someone's dying, you know. What were your favorite moments or like aspects of these caregivers?

The Invisible Visitors And Visioning

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Lisa was the main one, and then we also, when they added someone, we had someone whose name was Alison Wonderland, which I thought was a wonderful name, but apparently she had changed her name. So if she was Alison, something else, but she was, you know, it was like she went around with a wand and fairy dust was all over the room.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

They were like little mini Mary Poppins, but for later in life.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Yes, we were really fortunate. And as you said, Lisa was amazing. So um, I've stayed in touch with her.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Oh, I love that. Yeah, because there were times where one of them would come in and they'd take a look at you and they'd say, Go, get out of here. Like you need to decompress. Do you feel like you were able to give yourself permission to do to do that? Or did you need someone else to tell you, Alexandra, you you're taking on so much?

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Well, you know, my husband was very helpful in that because, you know, when he saw that I had, you know, a little bit too much, he would say, Well, how about we go for a walk at the beach? You know, we can go, we were really fortunate in Wealthley because there's so many beautiful walks you can take. Being in nature, we'd go through, walk through the woods to the ponds there, and that really helped. It really helped me to ground me and feeling the wind on my skin. And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yeah, kind of help get you back to that more stable place to where you can go back in and take care of your mom the way that you wanted to take care of her. It was very obvious that you would sort of feel frustrated or overwhelmed or emotional about this experience, which makes so much sense. And then just like us as moms, we don't want to take that out on our our children. So, what where's your outlet? How can you do that? I just love that you included those experiences. And it seemed like your husband was also kind of navigating his own feelings. You you bring up how he was sort of being reminded of the fact that he didn't really get to do this for his parents. You know, there was a lot of emotions going on in this place.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

He had lost his parents very close together, and then he also lost his brother who had pancreatic cancer. And it was like within three years, all three who were in Sweden while he was in the United States, they had all passed away. And so that was very hard.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

I thought that was very generous of you to share that in your memoir too, because you didn't have to include that, but you were so just willing to kind of expose all of the nerve endings that were going on at this time. You know, it's not just your story, it's your husband's as well, it's your mother's, it's a little bit of Lisa's, it's your children's. You know, we're all affected by these experiences, and you just captured it all so beautifully. What was the most unexpected or surprising part for you about caregiving?

SPEAKER_01 34:00

I guess that I knew so little. Really? Okay, yeah. Yeah. I really I, you know, when I decided to do this, I really had no idea what I was doing, which goes to show that anybody can decide to do it and learn as they go along. Sure. And I also I had no idea how rewarding it would be. That was a big surprise. And that was, you know, mostly I think as the the months went by when my mom had hospice towards the end of her life, that was when it really struck home to me what a privilege it was and how glad I was that I'd chosen to take care of her.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Because I I was in touch with something that most people do not experience.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah, either because they're unable to or because maybe they're a little fearful of it.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Well, you know, I think that um these I guess I'll call them spirits, these my I we call them invisible people when my my mom was alive. It's something normal. And I didn't know that at the time. So I would ask the hospice people, and like Lisa would tell me that her grandfather had experienced the same thing. And then I went and researched it in books, and I felt found something from 1918, I've forgotten the name of the book, on the threshold of the unseen or something that was describing exactly what she was experiencing. Yeah. From reading more recent books by hospice nurses, there's several that are out now that are very good, which didn't exist when I was doing this, but I learned that there's actually a term for this. It's called visioning. So um so I learned as I went along. That was a very, very special time.

SPEAKER_00 35:37

It seems like it. Did you ever have moments where you stopped and you said, Wow, I'm I'm doing it. Did you feel capable as you were doing it? Or were you were you kind of building the plane as you flew it? And then at the end you were like, Well, I did it.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yeah. I I did not think along those lines because I mean I was too busy. I was still doing the bed and breakfast at the same time as and I was writing the blog, and um, then I started writing a blog about the bed and breakfast. So I mean I was really busy all the time.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

But you never had a moment where you kind of acknowledged that you were doing a good job. Did you feel like you were doing a good job as you were taking care of your mother?

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Um I think so. Yeah. I think I I knew well, I knew that that was the right thing, that I'd made the right choice, that this was the right decision to have come back from Europe to take care of my parents, and that it was meaningful, and that I was giving them something that they would not have had if they had been in nursing homes. And it was a gift to me as well to be able to experience this. It was I I sort of equate it with like when I gave birth, you know, it was very similar. It's the at the end of life and giving birth, there's something similar that where you're you're touching something that most people don't experience, you know, these the visioning, as I understand it, in at least in the um rehabilitation center where my mother was, I saw the the attendants, the aides distributing the pills. And so they give pills to stop the hallucinations. They call them hallucinations. In the beginning, I called up my mom's doctor and I said, This is what's happening. And he said, Oh, well, we'll I can prescribe something for that. She's having hallucinations. And it wasn't really, I don't think of it as hallucinations. I think that's wrong. Yeah. I really prefer the visioning concept that the hospice nurses have these days.

Exhaustion And Emotional Survival

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Seemed like such a lovely thing for your mother. I mean, there were definitely times where she was overwhelmed or she she wanted them to leave, be quiet. But I mean, if I get to that age and I get to re-experience people from my life that I had lost, I mean, please don't give me a pill to stop that, you know? Let's talk a little bit more about the tolls that you experienced. You've talked a lot about the gifts. I'm glad that you felt like it was the right thing to do, but you do write in your memoir that you sometimes weren't sure what the right thing was when it came to caring for your mom or like letting her believe this certain thing. Um, and you do talk about this transformation that your mom had. She was very afraid to die because she didn't know what happened next, to finally feeling at peace from it and maybe having an understanding of what happened next.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

Well, she thought that when when you die, that's it. You know, that's the end. So she was afraid to die. And she did everything in her possible possible anything possible to not die. That was her goal, that she wanted to stay alive. So it was, I think, a revelation for her at the end of her life.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

I know it seemed like she was ready to die. And in fact, it seemed like she was ready to die, and then she was like, and now I'm not dying, like, finally ready, come on.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:37

Did she say, Oh, I think this happens now?

SPEAKER_01 38:40

No, no. It was it was clear at the end that she was ready and um, you know, she was at peace.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

What do you think happens when we die?

SPEAKER_01 38:50

Well, I um I don't really know, of course. Um, but I think it's important that everybody be allowed to end as well as they possibly can and die with dignity. You know, when we talk about dying now, frequently we see so much murder and now there's the war and people are dying, and that's just not the way people should be dying. It's yeah, not right. I think when one has lived a long life, like with my mother, um everybody says, Well, were you were you grieving? Were you in mourning? And it was really the time for her to die. It was, you know, at 97, it it happened at the right time. And for me as well, because I had gotten to a point where I was really exhausted by what was going on. And she started the hospice nurse had told me that when you know she'd start on these talking sprees about something that had maybe happened in the past and maybe it hadn't happened in the past, maybe it was just in her imagination. But when she'd do this, then the hospice nurse told me to just play along. So I would do that with her and and write it all down because I was conscious that you know that was important. But it was, it was, it was trying. At the end, I was really exhausted.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

Yeah, we felt that. So you feel like you didn't necessarily need to grieve your mother because you were able to walk to the finish line with her in this way. Exactly. Oh, that's really lovely. I mean, I think that's something that we could all hope for. I actually did an episode to start this season by the death doula. I I listened to it.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Actually, I I wasn't able to go to the Endwell Conference. There's a wonderful Endwell conference. Actually, it's in LA, so you could go, but I couldn't go this year. I wanted to go, but I was able to go virtually. And she was there and she's fantastic.

Hospice Help And Dying With Dignity

SPEAKER_00 40:39

Yes, her book is amazing. And it it is, I think there's so much fear around death because it is an unknown. None of us can experience what happens next, if anything happens next, and come back and be like, guys, it's okay. As human beings, I think we like to to know what something is gonna be like and we like to prepare. And there are just some things you can't prepare for, but you can prepare your spirit for it or your soul or you know, your heart. And it seemed like you were sort of doing that simultaneously while also taking on the physical aspect and these other burdens and gifts that you experienced at these last few months of your mother's life.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

Anyone who's in a similar situation, I would really recommend having house fess. I mean, it's been 20 years now, so I don't know exactly how that works, but it was such a help to us. And we had they they had like a doctor and a nurse who came by pretty much every week or two to check on my mom. They also had a chaplain, so if she wanted to talk about things, there was the chaplain to talk with. So that was just fantastic. My husband is now at the end of his life, and so I I know what he's going to be going through as well. It's a learning experience because this is not something that's taught in in schools.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

No, it's not. Yet it's something that we we will all experience. So you're just kind of like, why do I need to know what a rhombus is? Why don't we all talk about death? And we used to, death used to be uh a community event. Absolutely. One big thing that I took away from your book was the support that you had, whether it was with the hospice care team, your husband, nature. Nature did seem to be a big support for you. My last question for you before we wrap it up, you talked a lot about these things that you found, your mother's manuscript, certain relics. What have you done with them now? Have you kept them? Are they out somewhere? They're actually in a box.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

I have, you know, my father had with my mother had written a book called Private World of the Last Tsar because his father was very close to the Last Tsar and he was also an amateur photographer. So he'd taken lots of pictures. So I have all these boxes, you know, labeled dad and mom. So um that is one of my projects to go through them one of these days when I find the time.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

One of these days. I'm looking forward to one of these days as well. Lots of projects. Alexandra, I loved chatting with you today. Is there a big takeaway that you want your readers to leave your memoir with?

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Well, I think just to know that it's possible to do what I did, the circumstances in my life allowed it. And sometimes it's not possible. I know it's harder now because a lot of people in the sandwich generation are faced with these choices. And that's not easy if you have little children and an elderly parent, my God, you know, just one elderly parent was enough.

SPEAKER_00 43:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

So, but that just to know that it is possible because nursing homes have gotten so outrageously expensive. Yeah. And it's something that is rewarding to do. In the beginning, I never thought that when I started. I had no idea that that's would be my reaction. But I'm really, really glad that I did take care of my mom.

SPEAKER_00 43:50

And I'm glad that you shared that experience with us in your beautiful memoir. I have two more questions for you. One is a question that I ask all of my authors How do you stay hopefully? Hopeful today.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

I'm an optimistic person. So I just I don't have to really struggle to be hopeful. Although what's going on in the world right now is definitely challenging because it just does not seem sensible or right and that's very upsetting. But on the basis of my my own situation, I remain hopeful. I'm right now I'm living apart from my husband because he's in a nursing home in Sweden, which costs$1,000 a month for the nursing home, the health, the food, everything. Whereas if he had something like that here, it would be like 14,000 in Boston. I'm going to see him. I go over and see him like three times a year, which is it's not easy because now I'm getting older too.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

But we've been living this way for three years now because I tried to live in Sweden and they refused my request to live in Sweden, even though I've been married for you know, I've been married for 30 years and with him for 40 years. Oh my god. Yeah. So here I am in the United States and my husband is in Sweden and we face time every day.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

So okay. So yeah, you're living a challenging situation, but I remain hopeful. You've been through so much. You've had women in your life go through so much and share that with you. I think sometimes we can build on the grit and resilience as our life goes and the hope as our life goes. And I'm so sorry. That that just sucks. Dang it, Sweden. You're good in so many ways. Let me in.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Yes, exactly. A progressive country, and they, you know, behave like this. It's very hard to understand. Thank you so much, Alex.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

It's been lovely chatting with you. Alexandra, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I so enjoyed our chat and I really enjoyed your memoir. I'm gonna link how to buy it so that everyone who listens to this can go to the show notes and and buy it for themselves and meet B and learn more about your experience. Thank you for what you do. It's a wonderful podcast to be having. Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Bye, take care. Bye, you too. Thank you all so much for being here and listening. If you'd like to further support the show, please share this conversation with a friend or rate and review us wherever you podcast. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Patreon for extended episodes and bonus content. Next week, we keep the joy going when I sit down with author Cassidy Card about her memoir Cosmic Goodness. It details her journey from a high-stakes television career to finding peace in Montana, surrendering perfectionism, and embracing spiritual synchronicity. It also explores healing from childhood trauma, conscious sobriety, and finding magic in everyday life after a pandemic era burnout. Until then, take care.