Caring for My Father with Dementia: A Memoir

August 2, 2020 — This Article is an excerpt from a new book, “I Have Been Assigned the Single Bird”, by Susan Cerulean. The memoir poignantly recalls her experience caring for her father (my father-in-law) as he suffered from dementia, and makes powerful connections to the natural world around us. We think this excerpt and the book will be of interest to many of our Members who have or will find themselves in a similar situation. Cerulean is a nature writer in Tallahassee, FL.

My father’s fate was some sort of internal lightening inside the brain, strokes that led to dementia, and a long decline.  After his wife died, it fell to me and my husband Jeff to care for Dad during the last five years of his life.  As many people do, we struggled to reconcile the minutiae of the bedside with our full time work and three sons to raise.  

But taking care of my father was the right thing to do.

Within the first three months of Dad’s move to live close to us in Tallahassee, his life had returned to good order.  We’d distilled the physical goods of all his previous homes into a small but pleasant space.  I’d found a wonderful occupational therapist who had told me: “Your Dad is too high functioning for a lockdown memory unit.  Bob is still very able to rise to expectations.”  She confirmed my hope that assisted living could work out for him.  We’d visited a dermatologist, an eldercare lawyer, an eye doctor, a podiatrist, the dentist.  Two molars beyond repair had been excavated, and his teeth had been cleaned and polished.