Friday, May 27, 2011

Special Exits

Special Exits, a Graphic Memoir by Joyce Farmer 200 pp.

Lars and Rachel are an elderly couple who are slowly deteriorating with age. Their house is filthy, piled with junk, and falling apart. Their daughter, Laura, struggles to manage their out of control lives while maintaining a career and her own marriage and getting attacked by her parents' Siamese cat. At first her father and stepmother are managing okay until Lars has an automobile accident (which brought back memories of my own father) leaving them with no way to get groceries. They are very set in their ways and don't want 'strangers' in their house so they refuse any attempts to get them home health aids. Because of their failure to go to the doctor, Rachel loses her sight to glaucoma and her health fails in a variety of ways. Eventually Laura puts her in a home. Lars' health is also failing but he refuses to see a doctor. By the time he is diagnosed it is too late to do anything more than hospice.

This is a sad but realistic view of what sometimes happens with the elderly and how families struggle to do the best they can for them. It made me thankful that my 94 year old mother is still doing so well.

No comments:

Post a Comment