Before I Forget

For the past 15 months, I've returned to doing a lot of reading - not exactly for pleasure but as my version of meditation (which I call mindlessness rather than mindfulness). Most of the books have been thriller-type which I throw in with the category of bubblegum for my mind. It has worked very well for me even if it might seem pretty lowbrow to others. For instance, I've read about 33 James Baldacci books in 2026, alone.

Two weeks ago, the library ran out of bubblegum thriller books that I had not already read. I browsed through their "New Books" section, picking out a few on a whim. My whim was lousy. I took back those books and picked out a few more. Better. One, for reasons that will become obvious to the reader, stood out.

Written by Tory Henwood Hoen, Before I Forget hit me where I live. There were so many passages that reflected what our family had so recently gone through, that I alternated laughing and weeping my way through the book. You see, the story is basically about a woman's (and her family's) life as she negotiates her caregiving way through the last 15-18 months of her father's life.

Rather than review the book, myself (as you know my memory doesn't really work well at that sort of tasking), I provide bullet points from Book of the Month.