Alzheimer's Daughter

The Story

Alzheimer’s Daughter introduces the reader to my healthy parents, Ed and Ibby, years before their diagnosis, then recounts painful details as our roles reversed and I became my parents’ parent.


Their disease started as translucent, confused thoughts and ended in a locked memory care unit after a near decade of descent into the opaque world of Alzheimer's.

I began writing Alzheimer’s Daughter one week after my mother's death––when I was stunned, realizing Dad had no memory of her or their 66-year marriage.

I write to pay tribute to the undying spirit at Ed and Ibby's core, and with the hope that the story of their parallel decline might be helpful to others.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012


While speaking at the groundbreaking for the new memory care unit at The Western Reserve Masonic Community in Medina, Ohio, a yellow butterfly flitted across my pages. I thought of Hospice, and knew my dad, a seventy-year Mason, (and Mom too) hovered in spirit.

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