My Mom My Hero: Alzheimer's - A Mother and Daughter's Bittersweet Journey
By: Lisa R. Hirsch / Narrated By: Jannie Meisberger
Length: 2 hrs and 42 mins
Less than 3 hours, but I truly wanted it to end!
So, first let’s start with Jannie Meisberger as narrator. Uhm… what the HELL?!?
Okay, I think she’s jolly decent when she’s doing some of the Pride and Prejudice Variations that I’m so fond of. There I can handle her, but here? Oh my. What on earth was the publisher thinking by using a Brit to narrate the story of a family from BROOKLYN?!!! It just totally threw me. Okay, okay, okay. She narrates the emotion well, but really… what the hell!!!
Then let’s get to the fact that My Mom My Hero is mostly about Lisa R. Hirsch looking out for Mom’s good days and bemoaning the trying times. When you listen to it, and if you’ve ever been around a person slowing losing themself from any of the forms of dementia, you’ll hear that Mom has only progressed to the middle stage at the very most. She has many, many good moments, and she’s good-natured and even-tempered throughout the book (Again: If you’ve been around it, you KNOW how personality changes).
The only times Mom is distraught is after she’s REPEATEDLY asked a question she quite simply doesn’t remember the answer to. Hirsch does that A LOT. This is pretty much 2 hours and 42 minutes of Hirsch asking her mother: Who am I? What’s my name? Spell “Portugal". Spell “England”. Over and over she demands that her mother answer her until she gets a correct answer, or until poor Mom gets riled and miffed or just plain sad. She doesn’t NEED to know that there’s a country called Portugal so why is it so important that she spell the danged name?!?
All right, I’ve calmed down now…
If you’re looking for a decent book on the unique relationship that develops between a child and parent as the parent’s cognitive abilities decline, for this Mother’s Day, I prefer Listening with My Eyes.
Cuz this book, my friend, is pretty much Hirsch just hoping for the best when you KNOW that’s an impossibility with the disease.
Plus, it’s New Yorkers… with British accents… Whoo boy!
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