After struggling with what to call this blog, two words finally came to mind: resilience and grace. I think both describe the way my mother has lived her life. An immigrant, she moved to the United States in 1958, and with my father, raised my brother, sister, and me. Ever since Dad died, she’s had to live life without her greatest love, and far from her native country. It hasn’t been easy.

I hope these two words can also anchor my own thoughts and actions, as I help Mom negotiate some of the challenges of old age. Except for the first two posts, which I repurposed from an earlier blog, this site contains new material. I consider it fuel for the journey ahead.

Gwen Ito