On Her Own Terms

Internationally acclaimed author Carolyn Gammon conjures a kind and unflinching portrait of her mother's dementia-ultimately revealing the love, joy and life which remain even as memory and past fade.Learning to speak in maybes perhaps I told you? Were you there? and to let a mother direct memory as memory vanishes, Gammon threads a path through time, bringing us into the heart and heat of a mother-daughter relationship that is changing as each day passes. That one day, may not offer the pleasure of a daughter s company, but only that of a warm hand. Each poem reveals the intimacy of this mother-daughter relationship, thrusting the reader into their dialogue and communication. At the end of each poem is a quote from Gammon s mother, often eerily insightful, reflecting her own youthful ambition to write: I am still clinging to the vine and I find forgetting easy. Kind, often funny, and always honest, this collection is for anyone who has loved someone who is beginning to forget; has forgotten; but will not be forgotten.These words offer an archive; a testament to the memory that lives in books and a reminder that memory loss is not an insurmountable barrier to living a good life.