As my 28th birthday rapidly approaches, I can’t help but reflect on the similarities between my life and my mother’s. She is exactly twenty years older than I am, making her 48, and she’s debilitated by a genetic disease, stuck in a nursing facility, and alone. We’ve always had a tumultuous relationship and in my adulthood, it’s been more non-existent than anything else really. Her problems with alcoholism and the earth-sized hole I’ve had in…
