What is it like to live with Alzheimer’s disease? To know that you have it, and are forgetting
the everyday matters of life? To think
that one day you will forget your children and your spouse?
Alice Howland is a psychology professor at Howard and
has had great success in her field. She
loves teaching and being a partner with her husband, also a Harvard
professor. They have three beautiful
children in their 20’s off on their own attending school or starting
careers. Alice starts to forget things
more often, cumulating in going for a run and not recognizing the neighborhood
that she has been running through and living in most her life. She goes to a doctor to determine what is
wrong and is diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer’s disease. Alice breaks the news to her family and tries
to make the best choices to still be able to live her life to the fullest
before it is too late.
Still Alice is the March pick for the Kewaunee Library
book club and we will be discussing it this week. I have been wanting to read this book for
years and was glad to finally have an excuse to read it. I’ve previously read and enjoyed Left
Neglected and Inside the O-Briens both by Lisa Genova. My Great-Grandpa Kile had Alzheimer’s
Disease, and his daughter, my Grandma Stone had Dementia. Watching them battle through these diseases
and the changes it made on them and their loved ones was heart breaking. My Great Grandpa and Grandma Kile were
married for 67 years when he passed away.
The last year or so he didn’t recognize my Grandma but called another
lady at the Alzheimer’s home “Norma,” my Grandma’s name. I remember her softly crying when we would
leave from a visit with Grandpa.
Alice has the disease at a much earlier age than my
Great Grandpa who was in his 80’s battling the disease. As a professor of psychology, she is keenly
aware of what is going to happen to her.
I loved that she made her own group of other early on-set Alzheimer’s
patients to support each other.I also enjoyed that the book was told from her
point of view as she declined with the disease.
I was both amazed and infuriated by the reactions of her family. I love that her strained relationship with
her youngest daughter seems to strengthen with the disease. I felt for her husband, but was also
infuriated by decisions that he made. It
would be a very difficult situation to be in.
Favorite Quotes:
“Her mother had comforted her and told her not to be
sad for the butterflies, that just because their lives were short didn’t mean
they were tragic. Watching them flying
in the warm sun among the daisies in their garden, her mother had said to her, see
they have a beautiful life. Alice liked remembering that.”
“Her sense of Alice – what she knew and understood,
what she liked and disliked, how she felt and perceived – was also like a soap
bubble, ever higher in the sky and more difficult to identify, with nothing by
the thinnest lipid membrane protecting it from popping into thinner air.”
“There is no peace in being unsure of everything all
of the time. I miss doing everything
easily. I miss being a part of what’s
happening. I miss feeling wanted. I miss my life and my family. I loved my life and family.”
Overall, Still Alice was a touching look at Alice’s
battle with early on set Alzheimer’s and how it affected her and her
family. I like that this book brings Alzheimer’s
into focus and into discussion. I feel
like this disease and Dementia are not understood and the victims are often
blamed for something they can’t control.
Or forgotten because it’s easier to deal with that way.
Book Source:
The Kewaunee Public Library
Still Alice sounds like a very touching story. Excellent review! I'd like to read this, and/or see the movie.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of book club watched the movie as well - I need to see it! It sounds good!
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