My mother forgot my seventeenth birthday. My junior prom had been the evening before, and I slept over at a friend’s house. When I walked through the front door with my overnight bag that Sunday morning, I fully expected a “Happy Birthday” greeting from my family, yet I received none. Exhausted from the late-night shenanigans…
This is the real story of Love of Dixie. This blog began as a journal of my mother’s early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The reality behind Love of Dixie This blog has now sold thousands of Texas Strong t-shirts and published a children’s book. But, back then, it was not glamorous or funny or popular or…
When I was a small child, my mother often found me teaching class in my bedroom, my, then, compliant baby brother lined up in a neat row betwixt my stuffed animals on the floor. I wanted to be many things as I got older–a country singer, a travel agent, a marine biologist, even, in high…
People sometimes ask me if I’m scared that I, too, will get Alzheimer’s disease, like my mother did. I’m not as scared as I used to be, but the possibility is always lingering in the back of my mind. Here are my five worst fears about Alzheimer’s disease. My 5 Worst Fears about Alzheimer’s Disease…
A counselor once told me that my mother would be more “accessible” to me after she died than when she was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease. I didn’t fully understand what she meant at the time. She thought I was going to be able to communicate with my dead mother? Yet, shortly after my mom died,…
