A Caregiver's Journey

"Travels in Place" is a memoir which describer the journey Christiane W. Griffin-Wehr traveled while caring for her mother throughout her descent into memory loss and dementia.

Christiane gives the casual glimpses of her past with stories of an incident, a time or place in her childhood in Germany, or a more recent experience as she tells about training for a marathon on the Mesa trails in Boulder or reflections on her son Curtis, his studies, his career, and his concerns. She builds these incidents into juggling the delicate balance of denial and reality always present in the unpredictable journey of dementia.

Snapshots from her family albums posted throughout the narrative add a dimension to Chrisiane's writing. They help make the reader like they are fellow travelers on her journey. I identified as she described her mother's increase in loneliness and the stage of withdrawing into the isolation of her own world, as I have observed in loved ones as well.

Christiane tells of her difficulty in accepting the three indelible words which became a permanent part of her mother's medical records, "severe memory loss." She describes her mother's fading memory as the "deepening canyon of her decline."

Vacations gone awry, providing meals, meds, are only a small part of the sacrifice made by family members to help with care. There was also the difficulty Christiane had in dealing with the frightening imaginations of her mother's disturbed mind. She describes the ever changing subtleties of recognition, reliance, and reality. She expresses the sense of loss as she watched her mother withdraw from the world around her into a "gray space" of mental deterioration.

Christiane's writing is stirring, delicate, and poignant. She has crafted beautiful similes using the seasons of the year as parallels to the seasons of life. She tells of "hope born of possibility" when she discovered the motto of the Mountain View home is: "Alive in All Seasons of Life."

I found the chapter discussion questions titled, "Nourishment for Your Journey" especially helpful, as I have began recording journal entries of lessons I am learning on my own journey as primary caregiver of a loved one.

This is an important book for Caregivers, family members, and health professionals caring for the elderly. Perceptive, candid, and relevant.

9781934759103, Robert D. Reed Publisher
As Reviewed for Midwest Book Review