Excerpt From 'Life Gets Better'

In the last months of her life, my mother-in-law dwelled in a hospital bed in our house. It took all of her strength to get down our steep front steps, walk around the block, and get back up to the front door, but we did this together three or four times a week. As we inched down the sidewalk, she pointed out every flower, the pattern in paving stones, the various shades of green in the trees and bushes. I had never seen my neighborhood before — not like this — even though I had walked this circuit at least a thousand times with my dog. She noticed artful decorations on mailboxes, the way handrails had been constructed, the varieties of front doors, and had something to say about all of it. … Back to Article