How Alzheimer's Stole My Wife and Shattered Our Dreams: A True Life Story

A couple copes with terminal illness in this heart-wrenching and captivating memoir to help caregivers navigate the impossible task of saying a long goodbye.

Rick D'Amico and his wife, Ruth, had it all: notable careers, beautiful kids, and dreams of literally sailing off into the sunset during retirement. But when Ruth is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, everything crashes into the shores of a different destination as they cope with handling illness together.

Eventually, the effects of Alzheimer's/Lewy body dementia on their love story create a complicated and lonely journey for Rick to navigate. But through it all, he chooses to remember what Ruth would ultimately and tragically forget-that love endures, despite every broken dream that life sometimes destroys.

Honest and masterful, this personal testimony of an Alzheimer's caregiver helps shed light on the deaths that happen years before someone takes their last breath-and what becomes of those who keep breathing for them.