As our society debates how to handle our aging population, many of us deal with it on a personal level. My parents are rapidly approaching seventy, and while they’re in great shape and can probably go head to head with most forty year olds, there are still issues. I was working on the sequel to Safeword: Matte when my mom took a nasty spill. She walks a couple of miles a day, plus works in her yard six or eight hours a day, no matter how hot it may be. She’s not your typical old lady, but she apparently gets injured more easily, and takes longer to heal. Since she refused to allow a stranger into her home when she wasn’t at her best, my dad and I had to give her round-the-clock-care — head injuries are especially difficult, because sometimes she’d wake up and not know where she was. I took a week off  work, but when I returned to my day job I went to their house after work, and stayed until around midnight so my dad could get six hours of uninterrupted sleep. Once we were beyond the first couple of weeks, my husband and kids met me there on the days my mom was up to it, so I could see my family. My wonderful husband usually showed up with dinner already cooked, so all we had to do was sit down and eat.  I’m convinced having her grandkids around gave my mom incentive to get better, faster. I had my laptop and — on the days my family didn’t come, or later in the evening after they’d gone home — at first I could write when mom was sleeping. However, sometime during the second or third week the clicking of the keys was too much […]