She gave up on this train of thought and stretched an arm toward the woman to her right. Poised, younger. Shining black hair recklessly gathered into a spray held by a single elastic. Asian descent, Japanese Canadian, maybe?

“My name,” said the young woman, “is Chiyo. The name is supposed to mean ‘a thousand years,’ or maybe ‘eternal.’ I’ve been told it dates back to the seventeenth century. My parents were traditional when it came to naming. My dad died when I was young, but I remember a few things about him and I try to hang on to the memories. It’s my mom who recently passed away. That was April, five months ago. Losing her has been difficult because, well, she’s my mom. We relied on each other—we’ve always lived together.”

My mother is gone, she was thinking. Disappeared, forever. How does that happen? How am I supposed to deal with that? With a person’s disappearance? Despite the logical answers. Dust to dust. You speak to a person one day—engage, laugh, cry, whisper, shout, love or not love—and the next day you never see that person again. Nor does anyone else.

She carried on. “I’m a fitness instructor. I conduct classes for city programs, and those include tai chi and yoga. That’s how I earn my living. But even when I’m working, I can’t stop thinking about the steady stream of caregivers who were in and out of our home at all hours during the final stages of my mother’s life. She died in her own bed. I’m forty years old—I’ll soon be forty-one.” She added that, as if someone had instructed her to reveal her age.

What Chiyo’s memory was hauling up was the difficult period during which she had shouldered every responsibility on her own—without caregivers—long before outside help was approved and granted by the health system during the last months of her mother’s life. By the time her mother was deemed eligible for nursing-care hours at home, Chiyo was worn out. One morning, a nursing supervisor arrived and announced that she was there to do an assessment of the home situation. She handed Chiyo a form—a full page of questions—and asked her to fill it out, ranking her feelings about any stress she might be under. Chiyo studied the eight questions while the woman stood quietly by her side in the kitchen. Chiyo was aware of the bedroom door ajar behind them, could feel her mother’s eyes watching.

4. Do you experience frustration while caring for a patient?

7. Do you feel alone and unsupported while carrying out your responsibilities?

One question addressed degrees of anger. Another asked her to rank her feelings about interference. Did the patient’s illness interfere with other aspects of her life?

Leonard. Her classes. Her students. Clients. Her life. Trying to get to a movie once in a while so that she could stay sane. Leonard had fallen away, but Spence had come into her life. Thank heavens for Spence, who could make her laugh, feel loved and wanted, who made her feel beautiful. Thank heavens for tai chi, which helped her to meditate, keep her energy level up.