Book of the Week: They Left Us Everything by Plum Johnson

“I used to think parents should clean up their own mess before they depart this world; now I think just the opposite. Don’t die early. Wait till your children are old enough to appreciate it, and then leave them everything.”

This change of heart from Ontario-based writer Plum Johnson’s memoir, They Left Us Everything, is hard won. After 20 years of caring first for her senile father and then her 93-year-old mother, Johnson faces the emptying and selling of the cluttered family home after her mother dies. The planned six-week task turns into a 16-month journey into the past as she becomes consumed with cataloguing the home’s contents and memories, truly discovering her parents in the process.

Available at Indigo

Also by Plum Johnson

A Cruise of a Lifetime

The Mother of the Groom Wore Pajamas

25 Inventive Ways to Use a Dinner Napkin