A Necessary End

In a disarmingly candid, beautifully written memoir, Taylor ( Sons of the Father ) depicts the financial and emotional problems he encountered as one of the many middle-aged, self-absorbed offspring who suddenly find themselves faced with responsibility for aging parents. Taylor's fond appreciation for his mother and father's interests and rich past is mixed with exasperation and guilt as he recounts his struggle in 1989 to move his mentally and physically deteriorating parents from an independent life in a Mexican village to the security and care of a nursing home in Florida. The son recalls that shortly before dying after a fourth stroke, his mother gazed at him with ``a mother's full quotient of trust and love, which can never be equaled.'' His father died of cancer a few months later, leaving Taylor to say of their relationship that ``We had cared for each other as best we could, while caring for ourselves. There is really nothing more to know that matters.'' Illustrations not seen by PW . (Mar.)