"The Bear Came Over the Mountain"

This story, The Bear Came Over the Mountain by Alice Munro was so sad. I think it is the saddest story of her collection so far. This is the 8th story of her collection Family Furnishings. This story was a little longer, similar to the first couple of stories.

This story is about an old married couple, Fiona and Grant. I'm not exactly sure how old they are, but I'm guessing around late 60's to early 70's because they don't seem to be much older than that, but I can't remember if there was a specific age mentioned or not. But anyways...I think Fiona is a few years younger than Grant, but she begins to show symptoms of aging before he does. She begins to lose her short term memory and after a while begins to lose some of her long term memory. At first Grant thinks that she is making some of it up as a kind of game, because she is known to do that with him. But after awhile he doesn't think it's a game, and when she wanders out in the middle of a busy street, he decides it's time to put her in a nursing home where they can watch her.

He cannot see her for the first 30 days while she is there so that she can get a chance to adjust without any influence to get her out of the facility. After 30 days he goes to see her. She appears to recognize him, but she also seems to have grown close with another man who is in the facility. The rest of the story is about him trying to figure out how to deal with this situation because he does not want to upset her, but he does not want to loose his wife entirely either.

This story was so touching and sad at the same time. This man stayed true to his wife, even though she could barely remember him and their life together sometimes, and she seemed fond for another man. And the ending of the story was sweet as well. I think this story is my favorite now of this collection so far. I am no where near that age, I'm in my early 20's, but this story struck my heart because my grandmother is in a similar situation with my grandfather. He has been in a nursing home for several years now and can barely speak, but she visits him nearly everyday and has stood strong with him every step of the way, and I think that is why this story really touched me. This was a marvelous story and I highly recommend it. Happy reading everyone :)