As They Lay Dying...

Thank you to Dylan Landis for this sensitive report on how difficult it is to watch your parents die.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/books/review/closing-the-book.html?referrer=&_r=0

Ordinarily Dylan spends much time writing and reading books, but during the summer and fall of her parents' death and for nearly a year afterward, she could do neither.  

We often think of reading as an escape, a way of passing time when we can't do other things.  

But Dylan found her mind too preoccupied to get into a book.

This time, I found myself staring out the train windows, book in lap, unread.

And when my parents napped, instead of curling into the guest chair to read, I daughtered, picking up Kleenex blossoms, straightening papers and updating their friends. I opened books, listlessly closed them and talked to the aides about their boyfriends, their money and, with some of them, God.

I love her use of the word daughter as a verb-- to daughter!

I find myself infinitely distractable with daughtering, housekeeping, shopping, errand-running... It's so hard to pick up a book and stay in one chair, ignoring all the other demands on my life.

** Dylan Landis is the author of a ­novel, “Rainey Royal,” and a story collection, “Normal People Don’t Live Like This.”