Jane Gross

“I do not pretend to know who is right. But I do know this: most old people do not want their lives extended beyond reason. They don’t want their adult children changing their diapers. They don’t want to lose their minds and their memories. Give them the chance to tell you that. Don’t try and jolly them out of it. Imagine yourself in their shoes. Love them enough to let them go.”
― Jane Gross, A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents--and Ourselves

“My mother often mulled the pointless but compulsively compelling question of whether mental decline would be better than physical decline. Wouldn’t being round-the-bend demented be an easier way to go than being paralyzed, losing the ability to talk, becoming incontinent, and being totally aware of every second of it?”
― Jane Gross, A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents--and Ourselves