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The Long Good Night: My Father's Journey Into Alzheimer's (Hardback)

Simpkins, Daphne (Author)

As more and more people are discovering, Alzheimer's disease is the worst kind of thief. Over time, it robs those who suffer from it of their memories, their cherished connections to loved ones, the sharpness of their minds. In "The Long Good-Night, Daphne Simpkins chronicles the slow, sometimes heartbreaking decline of her father from the disease, but also contradicts the prevailing opinion that caregivers can experience only suffering and chaos during this difficult season.

For many years Simpkins had been writing columns about her Southern family, often focusing on anecdotes about her father. A family man, a man of God, a handy man who loved building houses (he built several of the homes his family and his adult children lived in) and who could repair anything (for seventeen years he was a troubleshooter for the local U.S. Air Force base), Jerry Simpkins was strong, smart, hard-working, and colorful. But by the time he was in his sixties, his colorful behavior became more and more peculiar, then worrisome.

Increasingly strange behavior and increasing trips to doctors and psychiatrists led, eventually, to the dreaded verdict. As Simpkins puts it, "I finally accepted the diagnosis that my very handy father who used to be able to fix anything was broken inside." She knew that she couldn't mend him, but she could take good care of him--and that's what she did until the day of his death, aided by her three sisters and other family and friends.

As Simpkins writes about what she calls her father's "disappearing act, " she illuminates the tremendous toll that this disease takes. "Alzheimer's doesn't happen to one person, " she explains. "It claims the community of people who love theperson with the disease. The care is constant, the demands profound." But this book is far more than a recounting of the long journey into the deep night of the disease. It is a loving memoir of a good father and a good man. It is a powerful portrait of a close family whose bonds are strained but ultimately strengthened by the challenge of caring for him. And, perhaps most surprisingly, it is a remarkably uplifting account of that experience. The grief in the tale that Simpkins tells is balanced by faith, love, hope--and humor. This book is not, as she points out, just another "sad trip through Alzheimer's territory."

Details

• SKU:9780802839718
• SKU10:0802839711
• Qty Remaining Online:3
• Publisher:Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
• Date Published:Sep 2003
• Pages:192
• Language:English