I’ll never forget the day I pulled the doctor into the hallway, desperate for answers. My mother had been in the hospital for weeks, and I needed to know the truth. "What is she actually dying from?" I asked. His response hit me like a freight train.
“Basically, poor self-care.”
That was it. My mother was 78 years old, but it wasn’t some complex disease or rare condition that was taking her life. It was years—decades—of neglecting herself. In...