The road goes both ways.

Adam J. Blust
2 min readJan 28, 2022

[Ed. note: I wrote this soon after my mother’s death in October 2017.]

I had always been able to make my mother feel better. Even before she became ill, when we would have lunch together on Saturdays, I could tell that whatever was going on, she would be happier after our time together.

This only intensified once she started needing daily and then nearly constant care. Many days were so difficult for her — every step, every time getting in and out of a chair, was a struggle. Sometimes — not often — she would admit to me how hard it was just getting through the day.

We started talking several times a day, either by phone or text. I would text her cute animal photos or cartoons I found online. And I would see her several times a week. That was possible because she was in Madison, not out in the country near Dodgeville, a good hour each way from my house on the near east side.

Instead, I could come over to her apartment pretty much anytime. We would eat lunch I brought, I would do some errands, and we would talk and laugh and watch Jeopardy together. She called it “our special time,” and would even tell friends who wanted to visit then that they needed to reschedule.

Other times she would call me and say she was having trouble with the iPad, or she needed something specific from the grocery store, and…

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Adam J. Blust

Writing memoir and memoir-adjacent stories. Hoping that exploring the past will illuminate the future. “How’s that working out for you, being clever?”