But when a function falters, you feel annoyance, or suspicion, or inconvenience, because a function is not supposed to have an inner life that could explain the faltering; it is just supposed to work.

That is why, when my mother’s body began to fail, I did not respond the way you respond to a beloved person in trouble.

I responded the way you respond to a malfunctioning appliance — with irritation, and then with suspicion that the malfunction must be somehow her fault, her secret, her hidden bad behavior.

I had so thoroughly reduced my mother to her usefulness to me that when she stopped being useful, my instinct was not concern but accusation.

That is the horror I have had to sit with.