This work of narrative non-fiction centers on a 7 year period during which a daughter cares for her elderly mother who has Alzheimer's, and focuses on the realities of "showing up" for a loved one. Using a poetic sensibility to describe the elegant and gritty realities of the experience it will take readers deep into the dance- those who have been there will sigh with relief that someone "gets it" and those headed in will gain some familiarity with both the territory ahead and the astonishing magical potential of a changing mind.
We listen in on conversations and silences that weave the journey into a timeless dance, revealing moments of both desperation and triumph.
This tender and moving elegy is full of the mother's voice, in all its pain and wondrous glory, taken from recordings.
Excerpt
Every day I sit with my mother and watch the sea. There's a row of birds perched on an errant log—cormorant, cormorant, seagull, heron.
Crow.
Cath, sometimes I drift off for ten minutes and I don't know where I've gone.
"Does that bother you, Mum?"
No, it doesn’t. Are you my daughter?
We watch frantic wing-flitting at her bird feeder, chickadees, starlings, sparrows. A house finch, brown-striped.
Cath, I think it’s a finch. It’s only, oh- a finch a finch a finch! Are they trying to tell you they aren’t in there? What are they trying to say?
“To say . . .? I, I don’t know, Mum.”
I think there’s something, they’re trying to get something across, aren’t they?