Notes to Self

While the frailty of her father is the focus of the opening piece, it is the fragility of the writer s own body and life that forms the central theme of the bulk of the collection: the chance which governs the human condition, the vagaries of the body, and her inability to control it. The opening essay is a raw account of the challenges of helping an ill older parent, exceptionally challenging in this instance because the parent suffers from alcoholism, and also happens to live abroad in a country where the public medical services are even worse than in Ireland. [...]the problems - the unexpected phone call, the moral obligation to drop everything and rush to the ill parent, the struggle with the hospital staff - will resonate with any adult child who is the ICE of a parent. [...]I would love to have Emilie on my side and at my side if I were ill in a terrible hospital anywhere!