"Feeding My Mother" by Jann Arden

I bought "Feeding My Mother: Comfort and Laughter in the Kitchen as My Mom Lives with Memory Loss" by Jann Arden in hardcover when it first came out, and brought it with me to my parents' house for Christmas that year (2017). I didn't get very far into it before I realized that reading a book about dealing with aging parents -- no matter how uplifting -- might not be the best idea while I was "home" visiting my OWN aging parents. So I set the book aside and marked it as "I'll get back to it someday" on Goodreads.  ;)  

"Someday" finally arrived. I recently picked up the book again. :)   

I don't know how many of you outside of Canada are familiar with Jann Arden, but she's kind of a national treasure here (and I've mentioned her several times on this blog, in various contexts). She is one year younger than I am (just turned 60), grew up in the same general part of the country as me (the Prairies, in Alberta), is single and childless/free, dotes on her pets, and is a vegan and animal rights activist. 

She's an award-winning singer/songwriter (her first album was released in 1993). She's a writer, with several books to her credit, including an earlier (2011) memoir, "Falling Backwards," which I read, loved, and reviewed here. She's a well-known actress and media personality here, particularly known for her guest appearances on "The Rick Mercer Report" (look up clips of her & Rick on YouTube;  they're hilarious together) and guest-hosting stints on "The Social" (Canada's answer to "The View" and "The Talk"), and she hosts her own podcast. More recently, she's starred in two seasons (so far) of her own self-titled sitcom, "Jann" (a fictionalized/exaggerated version of her own life), which has aired on CTV here in Canada and Hulu in the U.S. 

She also has a great presence on social media, and this book draws on her diary-like Facebook posts between 2014 and 2017, as she dealt with the declining health of her parents. By 2014, her father had had several strokes, and her mother was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, evolving into someone Jann didn't recognize anymore. Their house was 100 yards from Jann's on a rural property outside of Calgary, and Jann began cooking for her parents whenever she wasn't on the road. (Recipes are included.  :)  )   

The book is funny, sad, reflective, wise, poignant, compassionate and heartbreaking. Sample passage, on grief, from August 2, 2016 (which I thought many of us here could relate to): 

When you don't argue with grief like a drunk husband, much good can come from its stillness. Reflection is so important, time alone, solitude, reckoning. You can't be your best self when you're submerged in useless busy-ness...

Instead of telling discomfort to go away, I'm going to invite it in. I've learned that it seems to not really like that. It's more used to people who hide from it. 

I say let fear and grief sit at your table. Talk to them, give them a cold drink and a sandwich. They simply want to be acknowledged and not ignored. When you ignore them, they just hang around longer. 

In addition to being a pleasure to read, the original hardcover is a pleasure to look at. It's beautiful, visually -- the layout, the typography, the photographs. I also have an e-pub version on my Kobo e-reader, which I took with me to read in bed (easier to handle there). To my surprise, the e-version is longer than the original by about 30%:  the hardcover ends after a post from February 1, 2017;  the e-version has 35 more entries and ends with August 11, 2018. It's all good. :) 

5 stars on Goodreads.  I have a feeling I will be returning to this book, more than once, over the coming years, as I navigate my own journey with my own aging parents. 

This was Book #20 read to date in 2022 (and Book #4 finished in April), bringing me to 44% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 7 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."