I think about all the basements, in all the houses, where someone’s mother lies sedated and hidden and there is no one coming up the stairs.

I cannot rescue all of them.

But I have learned that the systems exist, Adult Protective Services, the special units, the laws against elder abuse, and that they work when they are given evidence, and I have made it a part of my life to help people understand how to give it to them.

My mother’s rescue was, in part, luck.

I would like to make it, for others, a little less a matter of luck.