Dementia by Stephen Lewis

Dementia by Stephen Lewis

DEMENTIA ... HOW CAN IT BE A LOVE STORY?

Because the other morning as we were getting ready for the day, Carol said, in the plaintive tones she sometimes uses in articulating this word, Steve, uttered with a look on her face that indicated something was bothering her, or perhaps scaring her. As I was standing right next to her bed, I took her hand, and said, I am right here, Steve is right here, and gave her hand a little squeeze for emphasis.

Thank God, she replied, articulating those two words quite clearly.

And that is how the love between dementia sufferer and dementia caregiver sustained them both as this disease did its terrible work ...

how they both somehow strengthened each other...

how in recording in journal form the jarring juxtaposition of the course of the disease and the necessary continuation of day to day life as best it could be managed ... how this book tells a love story like no other.

Stephen Lewis worked as a creator of children's cartoons and instructional films after graduating from Harvard in 1950. In 1964, he became the Editorial Director of the Elementary and High School Division of SRA, an innovative educational publisher. He now lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he developed and directs Writing Your Self, one of the country's first memoir-writing workshops.