The emails and texts and comments here on the site are such affirming evidence that we are not alone in the trenches of caring for a parent with dementia. When you’re in it, though, it feels alien and isolating. Thanks SO MUCH for sharing reactions and ways the Modern Love essay resonated with you, thereby drawing us all together in this common human experience.

For those of you who said you wanted to read more, here’s a link to an earlier essay I did on grief for Vela Magazine: “In the Form of Birds”

And hoping soon you will be able to read “Final Instructions for Princesses,” a piece of longform nonfiction about my mother. Circulating! Fingers crossed!

Thanks also to Modern Love and New York Times for bringing this essay to readers.

           —Melanie