Download Remembering the Music, Forgetting the Words: Travels with Mom in the Land of Dementia AudioBook Free
From the writer of the much-loved memoir Cottage for Sale, SHOULD BE Moved comes an interesting and inspiring profile of a daughter who must face her mother's early decrease. In Remembering the Music, Forgetting the Words, Kate Whouley whitening strips away the affectionate veneer of mother-daughter love to bare the toothed and troublesome reality of caring for a parent who's slowly shedding her brain. Yet, this isn't a dark or dour look at the demon of Alzheimer's. Whouley shares the seeking, the sensitive, and the sometimes amusing moments in meeting the challenge also known as Mom. As her mother, Anne, falls into forgetting, Kate remembers for her. In Anne we meet a strong-minded, accidental feminist with a weakness for unreliable men. The first girl to apply for - and win - a department-head position in her college system, Anne was an progressive educator who poured her enthusiasm into her work. House-proud too, she made certain her Hummel figurines were dusted and organized just so. But as her memory falters, so will her housekeeping. Ornamented by stacks of soiled dishes, piles of laundry, and months of unopened mail, Anne needs Kate's help - but she doesn't want to relinquish her hard-won self-reliance any longer than she needs to give up smoking. Time and time again, Kate must balance Anne's often nonsensical requirements with what she believes will be the best decisions for her mother's comfort and safe practices. This is familiar territory for anybody who has already established to help a loved one in decrease, but Kate discovers new and different ways to plan her mother and her forgetting. Shuddering under the weight of accumulating bills and her mother's frustrating, round quarrels, Kate realizes she must motivate past difficult family history to find compassion, empathy, and good laughter. When the memories, the labels, and then the words get started to fade, it is the music that counts most to Kate's mother. Holding hands after a concert, a flute circumstance slung over Kate's shoulder, and a shared joke between them, their romantic relationship is healed - even in the face of a feared and deadly diagnosis. "Memory," Kate Whouley writes, "is overrated."
