Mother Lode: Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver

by Gretchen Staebler

“. . . makes you feel as though a kindred soul is speaking to you.” — Readers’ Favorite

At the age of sixty, Gretchen Staebler promises to spend one year in her childhood home caring for her stubbornly independent ninety-six-year-old mother—sort of a middle-aged gap year. Then her mother will move to assisted living and she will return to her own independent life.

It doesn’t go as planned.

Rather than a retrospective, this mother-daughter story unfolds in real time with gripping honesty, bringing the reader along with the narrator through the struggle, doubts, and complexities of caregiving and daughterhood—and the beacons of light.

Penetrating the fog of her mother’s advancing dementia and myriad health issues with humor, frustration, and compassion—and wine—Staebler slowly comes to accept and respect the mother she got, if not the one she wished for. In the process, she manifests non-negotiable self-care and learns more than she wants to know about aging, cognitive loss, and the healthcare system.

Any reader who is looking for a road map in caring for a family member, has ever had a mother, or is looking aging in the eye will find company on the journey in this candid, multi-award-winning memoir. 

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

Published October 18, 2022

About the author

Gretchen Staebler is a daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, and wandering adventurer who left decades of grown-up life on the East Coast at age sixty to return to the mountains, beaches, and rain of her soul’s home in the Pacific Northwest. She blogs about her adventures from coffee shops, her father’s desk, national park lodges, her tent—wherever she feels cozy. She lives with her cat Lena in her childhood home in a small town in Washington—the real one.

Reviews

[Patricia Grayhall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mother Lode should be required reading for anyone thinking of taking on in-home caretaking of an elderly parent. Gretchen Staebler leaves her own home in North Carolina and travels to the Pacific Northwest to care for her ninety-six-year-old mother so that she might remain in the home that retains over fifty years of memories of life before old age.

As her hypochondriacal, controlling, but valiantly brave mother faces increasing blindness, deafness, and dementia, Gretchen struggles to remember and appreciate the woman she once was. At the same time, she hopes to establish a relationship with the mother she’d always wished her to be. Disappointed in her quest for an equal relationship as adults, and the no-win, alternative-fact confrontations that mark the relentless march of her mother’s cognitive decline, Gretchen sometimes wants to throw herself in front of a train. These periods alternate with poignant empathy for her mother’s struggle to hold on to her sense of agency and significance in her daughters’ lives.

Caring for her mother in the house in which she grew up, with little appreciation for her efforts, Gretchen finds it much harder than she ever anticipated as she struggles with her own anger and sadness. Though this book deals with a difficult subject, the writing is excellent and I found myself living it along with Gretchen, rooting for both her and her mother and hoping both would find redemption and acceptance at the end.

If you are a caretaker, this book will confirm you are not alone. If you are not a caretaker but know someone who is, give them a hug. After reading this book, you will know how much they deserve our admiration and respect.

[PJ Sampel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir is an incredible read—poignant, provocative, bittersweet—and inevitably very loving. I laughed and cried all through it. Staebler crosses the country to her childhood home to live with and care for her elderly (old-old…past 95 when she starts!) mother for a year and the best laid plans….Let’s just say it ends differently than both the writer and reader imagine. In a beautiful, lyrical, haunting way. A rich, powerful read that will have you thinking about your own life path and those of your beloveds… and how you may want to walk the “final holy road” that we all will walk someday. One of the best books I’ve read in several years. Highly recommended.

[Kathel Sugg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the book.. the honesty and frankness - A great guidebook for caregivers and for us approaching that time of needing caregivers. Gretchen took on a task and stayed the course with twists and turns along the way..the journey was longer than expected and I think more than she expected it to be. But what a time of great self-growth also. Great read...

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike most memoirs, this story was written in real time, as the author was in the throes of caring for, and living through, her nearly 100-year-old mother’s slow and agonizing journey through dementia and ultimately to her death.

I received an ARC (review copy), and I repeatedly had to step momentarily away, as the first-person, real-time account left me feeling like I was eavesdropping on a very personal and private family drama.

That is the power of this first person account of a daughter returning to her family home, at 60, to care for her Mother, a woman who is still capable of delivering searing critiques even as she depends on her prodigal daughter for daily care and sustenance.

To read this memoir is the literary equivalent of hiking the beautiful and treacherous mountains of the Pacific Northwest (where this story unfolds), where rounding a corner might bring you to a breathtaking mountain meadow or a sheer drop to heartbreaking loss.

If you are an adult with aging parents, the spouse of someone suffering from dementia, or anyone who worries how you will handle growing old and ‘losing your faculties,’ you need to read this book.

[Michal Nortness · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was an early reader of Mother Lode, and have just finished the final product. It is a remarkable memoir of a year that became a decade. Gretchen Staebler moved to her home town to care for her aging mother, leaving a whole life behind, and not being sure what she would find. This beautifully written story is told with courage and compassion. If you are or have been a caregiver for a family member or loved one of any age, or if you just like memoirs (I do), mark your calendar for 18 October. This one is not to be missed.

[Nancy Friedland · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful, heartbreaking, and empowering book. Yes, I laughed and I cried, but more than that, I was moved to think of how many of us already have, or someday will go through this experience of caring for a parent in their last stages of life. At the same time, we must come to terms with who they are as our parent, and who we are as their child. Staebler walks us through it all with honesty and tenderness.

Staebler tells the bitter and bold truth about moving back into her childhood home to care for her 96 year old mother, thinking it would be one year. It turned into six. The two women try to maintain their independence even as their lives grow increasingly intertwined. The mother-daughter relationship is often fraught with struggle, and Staebler doesn't shy away from the harsh realities. At the same time she portrays their deep love and respect for each other. It's quite the journey!

This is a book for anyone who is a caregiver, or has been, or will be. Or hell, anyone who is going to have to be taken care of some day. Or has a parent. Or is a parent. It's the human story.
Written in real time along the journey, she weaves in family stories, journeys into her own thoughts about aging, about creating a new life for herself in her 60s, and portrays the exhausting work of healing her relationship with her aging mother. It's gripping, emotional, smart, and funny.

[Vickie Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gretchen writes beautifully about the not-so-lovely parts of caregiving. Her love for her mother comes shining through, and her honest vulnerability is at times painful to read. I wept as I read this memoir and I laughed out loud. I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever cared for or will in the future care for an aging or ailing loved one.

I was honored to receive an advanced copy of this memoir.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well written insight into the heart of a 60-something woman who puts her life on hold to spend a year looking after her mother in the home she grew up in. The year turned into 5 and the discoveries the protagonist makes as she navigates her mother’s decline and makes peace with her changing relationship with her family are profound. I love the analogy of the labyrinth and how her mother and she are going in different directions but would meet, side by side, from time to time. If you are navigating looking after an old person, or are reflecting on the death of an aged parent, this book will offer insight into your own journey. It gave voice to parts of my own situation with my parents that I hadn’t yet found the words for, all these years later.

[Beth Mathews · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Candid and Compassionate Gift to Caregivers From page one on, I related to Gretchen Staebler’s ambivalence about returning to her childhood home in the Pacific Northwest--after raising her own family, a divorce followed by an invigorating career, and the birth of her first grandchild--to care for her mother who suffers from early stages of dementia. Leaving her rich life on the east coast behind, she drives across the country. Almost there, she slows the car to delay her arrival. The author’s descriptions of the beloved landscape where she grew up are crisp and deeply informed. She’s an avid hiker and camper—someone who charges her batteries by immersion in nature. Moving in with her ailing mother, requires “subterfuge training”—holding back honest reactions and thoughts, tip-toeing figuratively around to accommodate her strong-willed, hypochondria-prone mother increasingly set in her ways and forgetful. With the stage expertly set, I became immersed in Gretchen’s life as her mother’s care-giver and grateful for the periodic relief she receives from a sister, friends, and joyful visits with another daughter’s grandchildren--and camping escapes. Relatable frustrations are offset by tender, compassionate moments and humor. Mother Lode: Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver is a candid and compassionate gift to caregivers, filled with wit and wisdom.

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe because it hit too close to home, this mother-daughter story was difficult to read and impossible to finish, mostly because of the daughter’s projections of her own unresolved childhood trauma onto her mother. After two thousand, four hundred, forty-four days, she’s still adding up the “toll” love exacted.

[Educationsmith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I laughed; I cried

It is well written and flows well. Gretchen opened up and exposed family strengths and flaws, which could not have been easy. I recommend it to all, but especially to those who are or have dealt with aging family.

[Suzanne Marriott · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Mother Lode Gretchen Staebler has written a compelling memoir exploring her experiences in caring for her ageing mother. Through her detailed narratives and insightful reflections, we are invited into Staebler’s life and the life of her mother, privy to their differences, similarities, and often contentious interactions. Told with both angst and love, this is a story that will be meaningful to anyone who is caring for a loved-one, especially a parent. By the end of the book, we understand why the author chose to use the word “lode” as opposed to “load,” which for much of the book seems applicable. There is truly gold at the end of her journey.

[Mary Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mother Lode is a book for mothers and daughters, spouses, family members caring for other family members, as well as past, present, and future care providers. It is also an excellent read for professionals and anyone else open to walking and learning with a strong, brave, very human daughter who completed a long walk home with her mother.

For me, who loved the book from start to finish, there was only one thing to dislike about Mother Lode. It is a tragic fact of our society that Staebler brings so vividly to our attention: that the caretakers of our world are so invisible and taken for granted. Also, we, as individuals, have woefully little to no insight into the challenges of both the cared-for person and the care-giving person. My hope is that by bringing this story into the light, Mother Lode will bring impetus to help and strengthen this huge need in our country.

As I journeyed through the months, seasons, and years with Staebler as caregiver for her mother with cognitive decline, vision loss, and many other ailments, I found a wealth of wisdom. The story is so human, radiating the funny, sad, kind, compassionate, frustrating, intelligent, strong, stubborn aspects of good people with hard challenges. I hope you will love this beautifully, carefully crafted story by an exceptional writer as much as I did.

~ Mary Jo Doig, author of Patchwork, A Memoir of Love and Loss

[Ew Lake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Preparation.
Helpful.
Ideas.
Constantly reminded of Katy and mom.
Bringing compassion and love to the forefront.

[Abbie Watters · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 60-year-old independent woman moves back to her childhood home to help care for her 98-year-old mother. She and her mother continue to have the problems they have had all her life - control, hard-headedness, etc. As an adult daughter who also returned to my home town, I could relate.

Gretchen originally promised to give it one year while her mother prepared to go into an senior living home. After four and a half years, the move is finally made.

If you still have a living parent, or if you are the parent, you will find touch-points in this memoir. It is ultimately healing, and life-affirming.

I received an advance copy of this memoir.

[Lyn Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written, honest, loving and frustrating look into the world of the carer. This is not a clinical "how to" be any means. It is a down to earth reflection of what it is truly like to care for someone you love. Gretchen is not afraid to share her vulnerability and insecurities, as she rolls with the emotional overload, sleep deprivation, and uncertainty of what lies ahead, while trying to provide what is best for her mum. Many components to the caring role are covered and Gretchen's sense of humour was also appreciated. Nothing was smoothed over - it was told with raw honesty and compassion.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little prose-y and plodding makes it less enjoyable to me, but some really beautiful realizations. Props to the author for the fine line of describing her mother's flaws while being loving and honest.

[Alison Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honest and candid read.

[Sue Ann Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful and comforting

Felt like Gretchen was sharing a cup of coffee at my kitchen table. our stories interwoven. We travel not alone.

[Bonnie Nygren · Rating 5 out of 5]

When it comes to caregiving, we are all likely to find ourselves on this path at some time or another in our lives. Whether it is illness or age that sets this partnership into motion, it feels almost inevitable that it will somehow touch the lives of most all of us. Mother Lode is one woman's story. Gretchen Staebler has thrown open the door as she takes us on an often-tumultuous ride as primary caregiver to her nonagenarian mother. Both cautionary tale and love story, she deftly delivers a narrative that had me laughing out loud one minute and sobbing the next. I love this book most for its honesty. For her honesty. I've read other accounts of the delicate relationship between mother and daughter, and while everyone will have a unique experience, this story slips below the surface to expose some awkward and uncomfortable truths that are often at the root of it. If you have been down this path, are navigating it now or see it in the not-so-distant future, I believe you will marvel at the brilliant way she tells the story of that tenuous bond of love and frustration. Caregiving isn't for the faint of heart. I found myself on these pages which made it personal, and the stunning writing made it hard to put down. Masterfully weaving together feelings and events with memory and dream made this a five-star read. I was gifted with an ARC (advanced reader copy), and I can't wait to buy up a handful of these to offer as gifts. Brava, Gretchen Staebler.

[Mona Frazier · Rating 5 out of 5]

The realities of caring for an elderly mother with advancing dementia who cannot see or hear well are illuminated in this poignant memoir of a daughter who gives up her home to move across the country to provide live-in care for her 96 y.o mother.

Several passages resonated, as I have the part-time care of an elderly mom with vision and hearing loss:
"Perhaps the endless instructions remind her that she is competent and lull her into believing that, as my mother, she still knows more than I do. Her need for control and her insistence on micromanagement have gotten worse as she has aged...She doesn’t want to need anyone but me, and she pretends she doesn’t need me either...I grieve the loss of my mother, even while she lives on."

This mother-daughter dynamic leads to frustration and anger, with both stuffing their feelings, the resentment bubbling underneath. This endless loop can be alleviated with resources, many of which the author and her sisters have to fight for. Many battles are with her mom, Medicare, and the author herself.

Like many caregivers, the author is stretched in several directions: caring duties, the desire to spend time with kids and grandchildren, relationships with siblings, and the loss of her personal life.

There are times of humor: "While she whines, I wine."

If you are a caregiver, this memoir lets you know you're not alone. The insights the author has can help others who deal with the same feelings.

[Ellen Barker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this title, with its double meaning of Lode and Load. And the subtitle – Confessions of a Reluctant Caregiver – lets us know that her story is not all sweetness and light as she and her mother say goodbye. It’s years of drudgery, arguments, remembering, soul-searching, and figuring out her own path. And yet, it’s told in such wonderful, novel-like prose, that I was drawn into her story from the first page, riding along as she drives into the town where she grew up, parks in the driveway of her childhood home, and unpacks in the bedroom she left behind decades ago. This is her life for now: caregiver for a mother who is losing her hearing, sight, and memory. Reading through what comes next, the day-to-day minutiae of caregiving, I found myself cringing, groaning, laughing, and rolling my eyes as her story met and diverged from my own experience. Dementia journeys vary widely, but this journey is enlightening in the most universal way. Without realizing it, I learned so much about being old-old (as the author describes her mother) and about acceptance, flexibility, and soldiering on in the caregiver role. At the end of the book is a photo of the author. Her relaxed smile tells me that although she went into it reluctantly, she came through it with no regrets, knowing that she and her mother loved each other to the end.

[Gabriel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mother Lode captures the frustrations, doubts, and grief of caring for a family member going through the slow decline of old age and dementia. The slow-paced, somewhat repetitive style made it difficult for me to get into it at first, but it was worth it for the heartbreaking and bittersweet reflections on the relationship between the author and her mother. During her time caring for her mother, Gretchen struggles with yearning to redefine her relationship with her mother and smooth over any turbulence from the past, while being hit with the reality that her mother's cognitive and physical decline has fundamentally changed both what her mother needs and what she can give in their relationship. The contrast of who Gretchen remembers her mother as, who she wants her to be, and who she is now, in her old age, brings out frustration and grief that are cut with moments of genuine empathy and connection between mother and daughter.

[MELISSA · Rating 5 out of 5]

How I wish this book had been available to me when I was in the rigor of caregiving for both of my parents and then my husband over a 15 year period of my life! Gretchen is seeringly honest and courageous in naming the "unmentionable" thoughts and feelings that so often arise in this journey - for both the caregiver as well as the one who is being cared for. These conversations (and the support for how to engage in them) are desperately needed in a country where aging, death phobia and the fact that loss and grief co-occur all along the way are not named and acknowledged. Gretchen's distinctive voice, wry humor and many poignant moments of vulnerability and insight are balm for a caregiver's weary (and too often, lonely) soul!

[Susan Karr]

Gretchen Staebler's memoir is told from the heart and is an honest rendering of what it takes to care for an elderly woman with dementia. In this well-balanced account, the author gives a frank assessment of the trials and frustrations of day-to-day reality of dealing with an unreliable narrator (the mother) who is prone to whining and hypochondriac machinations.

As in fiction, the story follows a dramatic triangle with Dementia as the perpetrator, Gretchen as the rescuer, and Grethen's mother as the victim. Even so, at times Gretchen's mother perceives her daughter as being the victim and herself as being the rescuer. The story is fluid and malleable, thus maintaining the reader's interest as it follows along a dramatic arc.

[Kristie McLean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Death, like birth, can be long and messy, and often not on the timeline that we wish. Chronicled with raw, wry, and luminous detail, author and daughter Gretchen Staebler shares her vulnerable, honest, and ultimately triumphant narrative about the complexities of family, and the shepherding of the final journey of those we love.

Set in the backdrop of the Pacific Northwest, with elemental strengths of mountain, water, forest and wildlife, Mother Lode shows us that it’s possible to find the glimmer of gold in the fault lines: what it means to claim life fully, stay resilient amidst hardship, and step through the liminal space to what waits for us on the other side.

[Donna Cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

At times painful, at times humorous, this is an honest and unflinching memoir of love at its hardest. Beautifully written, it details the author’s years of being her elderly mother’s caregiver—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Mother-daughter relationships are hard enough. Layer in frailty, dementia, caregiving and two strong-willed women, and in the hands of a skilled writer like Staebler, it becomes unforgettable, Whether a reader will ever face similar circumstances, read Mother Lode for the insights into two precious lives.

[Susan J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bravo to Gretchen Staebler for writing a memoir that is both heartfelt & heartbreaking. She shares in vivid detail the ups & downs of her 6 year journey with mother throughout her final years. Returning to the Pacific Northwest home of her childhood, the author shows how a cascade of emotions & experiences defined her days with her mother, siblings, children & newly arrived grandchildren. Mother Lode is a compelling treatise on what is means to be a family caregiver & how challenging this life role is for a growing number of adult children today. Definitely a must read!

[Linda Henley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This honest memoir helped me to better understand the challenges presented by a friend's caregiving experience. Like the author, my friend took responsibility for her aging mother for six years. It was a daunting task, and I frequently became impatient while listening as my friend described seemingly impossible situations with the mother as she lapsed into dementia. It's a helpful book for caregivers and an unflinching glimpse of what some of us may face as we become older ourselves.

[Barbara Rubin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! This story will resonate with anyone who has a loved one who requires care in their senior years. The challenges, frustrations, love, compassion, and energy drain of caring for someone with dementia are all on full display in this memoir. Gretchen did a great job of documenting her journey as a caregiver and giving readers an inside look at her role as a devoted daughter for an aging mother. Thank you for sharing your story.