New Projects
I'm switching gears to focus on dementia and Alzheimer's, and the common struggles of caring for someone who's turning back into a child. Based on my mother's battle with memory loss and eventual inability to look after her affairs and overall health, this memoir uses humor, spirituality and travels across the Caribbean, France, Montreal, USA and Costa Rica with Haitian culture as the backdrop. From the good Samaritan who found mom walking in the cold with only her nightgown and slippers to other angels coming in the form of nurses, perfect strangers and neighbors who became part of our chosen family, the aim is not only to provide support for other families but to also honor a life worth celebrating.
"The County had given me 30 days to come up with a care plan or they’d come up with one for me. It wasn’t a warm, courteous face to face meeting but a cold attempt to take advantage of a family’s current vulnerable state in preparation for replacing me as my mother’s Power of Attorney. It took my daughter to help me see that they were about to make me unfit to look after my mother and therefore entitled to all of her monies. I hadn’t signed any papers, but appearing overwhelmed made me an easy target for unwanted supervising. The hurricane had spared the house, but the neighbor’s tree had fallen over mom’s fence, and the owner was taking his time removing it. Adding to my stress was the family’s own plan to place their aunt in a nearby nursing home to make it easy for them to visit her and ultimately be in charge of her bank withdrawals, but I was in the way. They were sure that I’d want no part of caretaking, since mom and I never got along. Without any siblings to at least rotate the responsibilities with, it was inevitable that they’d intervene. But the same way they didn’t trust my intentions, I didn’t trust theirs. As volatile as my relationship with my mother could get, she didn’t deserve to spend her next living chapters in a room facing a city bus terminal with engine smoke setting at her window. “Tell me what you need, dad.” My daughter had grown into a model-like young lady who everyone agreed resembled her grandmother, but without the elegance and discipline. Ocean played the wise stepparent by allowing her time to mature, even if it meant keeping his opinions to himself. But she was daddy’s girl and was paying close attention to how her grandmother was reacquainting herself to her own house by opening and closing closet doors and kitchen cabinets and fiddling with her favorite ornaments that she proudly displayed in every room. Ornaments that glorified European opulence that I grew up resenting because none of the faces looked like us. I had to learn to give her some grace for her mental training, just as I was giving my daughter some grace for wanting to help."
If you'd like to follow my process of creating this book project, I welcome you to visit Writing in the Jungle.