🌟🌟🌟🌟

A clear-eyed look at the tragedy of aging with dementia, and the enormous burden placed on those left behind. In this detailed and chilling memoir, the author, a hospital speech pathologist in her fifties, must cope with the rapid cognitive decline of not only her father, as he approaches his nineties, but his wife, Joan, the author’s step-mother, who is clearly also similarly challenged. To make matters more complex, while the couple occupy a rural log cabin, built by hand and cherished for more than fifty years, outside the city of Montreal, Quebec, the author lives a thousand kilometers away, in the Eastern Canadian province of New Brunswick.

With poignancy (and a touch of dry humor) the author outlines the terrifying emotional aspects of dementia she must face as those closest to her are replaced with strangers – stubborn, unpredictable, querulous, and most heartbreaking of all, harboring unreachable eyes largely rendered vacant.

With what feels to the reader like horrifying speed, the familiar quirks and personalities of what once defined a confident and independent couple become ringed with memory loss and confusion, culminating in spectacular losses of judgement that ultimately dictate the necessity for round-the-clock care.

Desperate to stay in their own home, it will take a superhuman effort by the author to manage the logistics to sport this. With no siblings, and tasked with primary responsibility for the personal and financial care of her parents, the author faces a multitude of obstacles as she puts in place the team of caretakers it will require to ensure the safety and medical oversight required. Calling on support from on-site helpers including family, neighbors, nurses, and personal support workers, as well as outside agency, hospital and emergency services, it becomes clear that the tremendous level of compassionate advocacy exhibited by the author is the single-most fundamental anchor point of their care – without which one or both would most certainly have faced a healthcare disaster.

An eye-opening read for those who care for, or care about, those aging in our midst (and particularly those facing dementia) and what it may take to provide for their safe journey, this thoughtful, well-written book, laced with humor, insight and candor is highly recommended.

A great big thank you to the publisher Nevermore Press, for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.