Ronald-Stephane Gilbert, a resident of Beachwood, Ohio, chronicles his visits to his mother in Maine after her dementia diagnosis in his new book, 'Conversations with My Mother: A Novel of Dementia on the Maine Coast.' The fictionalized account includes real conversations with his mother and sister, set against the backdrop of a changing Maine coast. Gilbert explores the parallels between his mother's transformation and the changes he observes in his childhood hometown.
Beachwood author’s heartfelt book tells of cherishing the natural beauty and kindness of his mother as she battled dementiaBeachwood author Ronald-Stephane Gilbert and his book "Conversations with My Mother," which tells of his visits to Maine to be with his mother after her dementia diagnosis and what he learned from those talks.
Gilbert came to see his boyhood home changing, just as he saw his mother becoming someone different. As he tells it, there are parallels to be drawn between the character of his mother‚ the elegant, French-speaking Yvette Allaire, and Maine’s “tourist-embattled coast.” When asked what remained of his mother as she lived with dementia from 2015 until her death six years later at age 92, Gilbert said, “What remained, and this is not always the case with Alzheimer’s in particular, and sometimes with dementia, sometime people will become irrational, mean-spirited, will become quite angry. My mother was probably the most forgiving person I’ve known, and she remained so.
Those instances of frankness came when his mother would be quite honest about what she observed, sometimes about Gilbert, without any sugarcoating. Because the book is in novel form, told in a series of vignettes to better relate a full story, Gilbert said there are some instances in which dialogue was added to what was actually said in the recordings.
Dementia Family Motherhood Literature Memoir
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