Days with My Father's Ghost!

At the early age of 55, my father, who was also a recent widower, was the first person in my family to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's. With me being an only child, his disease and care became my sole responsibility, placed right on top of all the other demanding roles that life had given me. I was also a single mother, an ex-wife, small business owner and alone. My support system consisted of a few close friends, but no family nearby.Close to a year after my father was diagnosed, I began a journal about what I experienced and felt as I watched his disease turn him into a ghost. And for the next two years I wrote about the days that needed to be written as an escape, my preferred method of poetry estranging itself from me because of my anger. But once my father's disease progressed to the point where I was faced with difficult decisions, I dropped my pen and began pressing keys instead. Sharing my then current manuscript with each of my father's sisters and his mother as a way for them to understand how he and I had gotten to where we were and the decisions that I had made. After putting my father away in a nursing home and then clearing out his bedroom, I discovered his own writings that his confused mind was fighting to finish, so as my last care-giving act, for my last surviving parent, I began writings his story so that he may never be forgotten.Within this book I will share with you my story of the 2013 days that I spent watching my father become a ghost, and how that ghost scared me into finding the courage that I never knew I had.