Book review—“The Long Goodbye”

“The Long Goodbye” by Patti Davis describes losing her father, Ronald Regan, to Alzheimer’s disease.  As a reader I was able to identify with her feelings of helplessness against this devastating disease.  This particular passage was especially poignant:  Alzheimer’s snips away at the threads, a slow unraveling, a steady retreat; as a witness all you can is watch, cry and whisper a soft stream of goodbyes.

In The Long Goodbye, Patti Davis describes losing her father to Alzheimer’s disease, saying goodbye in stages, helpless against the onslaught of a disease that steals what is most precious—a person’s memory.  “Alzheimer’s,” she writes, “snips away at the threads, a slow unraveling, a steady retreat; as a witness all you can do is watch, cry, and whisper a soft stream of goodbyes.”

This one sentence describes a person’s initial reaction to a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.  There are great emotional descriptions of emotional reactions to the initial realization that Alzheimer’s disease has been diagnosed.  Beyond that this reader found the book one of personal memoirs of a daughter and her family. I was not able to relate to much of what the author wrote.  

All in all, it should be said that each and every Alzheimer patient is unique.  Their families cope based on a unique set of learned principles and their own personalities.  That being said, it is another perspective of how Alzheimer’s affects a daughter.