Photo Courtesy of Pixabay user geralt
(FRIDAY HARBOR) A local author has written about dementia in a very different way. And she’s contributing to a larger conversation by way of a new thriller.
Her home may be isolated in the San Juans, but author Susan Wingate has always plugged-in to the world around her through a series of books. But life took an unexpected turn with a surprise diagnosis.
“My mom had Alzheimer’s Disease and she came to live with us in June of 2015,” Susan recalls. “Her experience with the disease…she had the ‘negative’ symptoms. The aggression, the paranoia, and the hallucinations.”
Two years later, her husband was diagnosed with dementia.
“Bob is just like ‘dreamy’ compared to my mom. He’s just dear, and gentle, and happy.”
Susan has experienced a memory thief from two different sides.
Does an author’s experience with something real prompt them to write about it? Yes, but most times we’re talking about non-fiction. Susan doesn’t do that. And her newest book, titled “When You Leave Me” is about an Alzheimer’s journey.
Just not hers, and not Bob’s.
“When I’m reading a story, I wonder if the author has lived through the experience themselves,” Wingate tells Northwest Newsradio. “But as a fiction author, this is so not our story. Now, there were elements in it that were startling for me when they happened, and they ended up as events (in the book) but it’s so not our story.”
June is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, and Susan Wingate is hoping her book…while drenched in fiction…has enough fact that you’ll understand those with Alzheimer’s better.
“They’re the same person that you married or you knew as a mother, father, sister, or brother,” Susan says. “They are that person inside still. It’s just that they’re acting different, and their brain is failing them. You just need to have some faith and compassion…lots of compassion…and give yourself a break.”
