Life with a Crazy Grandma

This is no gushy love story. No way There's violence and hate galore. Mother threw my toddler on a tile floor and tried to choke my daughter. She kept an elderly neighbor hostage on our kitchen floor for a full day.

Mother threw solid objects at my husband-books at his head in the middle of the night and a green banana at his groin. She insisted she needed an axe to demolish our television. And as for me, her caretaker, I should probably have been arrested for convincing her to ride a roller coaster.

Mother never intended to be crazy. Her greatest fear while I was growing up was that one day she would live with me and ruin my life. She said so-often.

Alzheimer's is a cruel disease. It turns its victims into personalities they would never choose to be. It is a trial for them and their caretakers. Many people have asked us why we put our family of seven children through such trials, that we needed to think of the emotional impact on our children.

But with trials come blessings. We all gained more patience. We learned to distinguish the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and to try to focus more on what is truly important. We learned that love is a verb, and that we learn to love those we serve. We learned there can be joy and even humor in the midst of pain.

Hopefully, you will smile while reading this book. There are lots of unexpected twists when caring for a loved one ravished with Alzheimer's. To survive, laughter is better than a breakdown.