![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I realized I wanted to combine the text and images and write a graphic memoir, i.e., a comic book. They contained not only written entries, but also small sketches of incidents that had happened, and the last journal included drawings I’d made of my mother the night before she died, recording what I knew would be my last glimpses of her. Writing a straightforward nonfiction account felt closer to what I wanted to achieve.Īfter Mom died, I went through my journals. Over the years of Mom’s illness, I experimented with telling the story through poetry, autobiographical fiction, and “lyrical nonfiction.” None of it felt right. Soon I knew that I wanted to do more than write in my journal I wanted to publish my writing. As our family travelled through the heartbreaking and bizarre world of Alzheimer disease, I continued to record as many details as I could. It wasn’t just that her memory was failing everything was changing-her speech, the way she held herself, the way she moved through space, even her facial expressions. Her diagnosis had been a complete shock she was young and healthy and there was no family history of the disease.Īs soon as I realized that something serious was wrong with Mom, I started writing about it in my journal, driven by a need to record the strange and scary changes that were happening to her. My mother, Midge, died in 2004, after about six years of suffering from Alzheimer disease. ![]()
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