- Genre:biography & autobiography
- Sub-genre:Personal Memoirs
- Language:English
- Pages:232
- Paperback ISBN:9798317849580
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Book details
Overview
Before there was Alzheimer's, there was adventure. Fish were caught. Frogs were captured. Hitchhikers were rescued. Stories were told around a backyard fire, marshmallows roasting over the flame.
When Maribeth's mother begins showing signs of Alzheimer's, Maribeth is raising three boys of her own, all under the age of ten. Suddenly, she finds herself caught between two generations—trying to hold on to the mother she has always known while keeping up with the joyful chaos of raising a young family.
Warm, candid, and often funny, When You Were Mine is a memoir about mothers and children, the realities of the sandwich generation, and the family stories that remain with us even when memory begins to fade.
Description
As her mother's Alzheimer's progresses, Maribeth finds herself living between two worlds: helping to care for the mother who once cared for her while raising three young boys of her own.
Her days are filled with baseball practices, brotherly brawls, birthday parties, and the everyday work of motherhood, even as she and her siblings face increasingly difficult decisions about their mother's care. She wrestles with fear, guilt, denial, and grief while trying to remain present for the three boys who are growing up faster than she ever imagined.
Through it all, the stories her mother told become an anchor. Tales of her mother's girlhood, Maribeth's childhood, and the years that followed offer glimpses of the woman Alzheimer's is slowly obscuring. Filled with resilience, humor, adventure, and love, those stories become a way of holding on to her even as she changes.
More than a memoir about Alzheimer's, When You Were Mine explores what happens when motherhood and daughterhood collide. It is about the sandwich generation, the shifting relationships between parents and children, and the ways family stories become our inheritance.
Heartfelt, honest, and ultimately life-affirming, When You Were Mine is a story of love and loss, laughter and heartbreak—and a reminder that while memory may fade, the stories we share can carry us forward.
