The Unexpected Labor of Caregiving by Ann E. Green

The poem titled, “To the Woman at My Mother’s Funeral Who Thought It Was So Lovely that My Mother Died at Home” by Kathryn Paul (Spring 2022 Intima, Poetry), circles around my mind days after reading it. Paul’s poem eloquently speaks back to the assumption that it is always good to die at home, that home deaths are always peaceful. The literal hands-on work of caregiving—the cleaning of blood, mucus, urine and feces — is unspoken and generally done by women, whether paid or unpaid, and the writer, who in her bio calls herself “a survivor of many things” captures this in her poem.

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