Remembrance Of Things Present: Making Peace With Dementia by Peter Maeck
Publisher: Shanti Arts LLC (April 18, 2017)
Category: Health, Alzheimer’s Disease, Dementia, Photography, Memoir, Poetry
Tour dates: Aug-Oct, 2017
ISBN: 978-1941830802
Available in Print & ebook, 70 pages
Peter Maeck celebrates his father’s brave, good-humored struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease. With lyrical prose, rhyming verse, and his own photographs, Maeck traces his personal journey from resistance to acceptance of a loved one’s dementia, and suggests how the affliction can draw patients and caregivers together instead of driving them apart.
Maeck says, “As if to compensate for my father’s fading memory, my own memory became more acute. As Dad shed future considerations, I projected further ahead. Then I realized that all my forward and backward looking was pushing me away from my father; thus I had to meet him where he was increasingly living: in a constant present tense.”
As the book reveals:
Dad and I then moved from a prose relationship into one of poetry, less literal and more metaphorical, where we engaged more in rhyme than in reason, freezing time initially but then melting it and coming together in that lyrical realm between what had gone before and what was yet to be.
When presenting his story at TEDx events, Alzheimer’s Association gatherings, and mental health conferences in the U.S. and abroad, Maeck hears caregivers, familial and professional, confess their frustration, regret, despair, and even rage when dementia is diagnosed. Clearly, caregivers need and deserve care giving as much as their patients do. “Remembrance of Things Present” aims to comfort, console, and inspire persons with Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia, their loved ones, clinicians, researchers, and all whose lives dementia touches. As Maeck says, “If art can offer no more than symptomatic and palliative relief from the effects of Alzheimer’s Disease, that is no less than modern medicine has done to date. Ideally, art and science can work together to reduce dementia’s effects and ultimately reach a cure.”
My Thoughts Remembrance Of Things Present: Making Peace With Dementia by Peter Maeck
When I was in senior high school, my Grandma Elgia, my father’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. After the diagnosis, she deteriorated very fast. My aunt tried to care for her but it became too difficult and she was put in a nursing home. There were not as many options back then. It was a very long goodbye; she lived over 10 years after the diagnosis. My father use to tell me never to let him get that way, as if I would have any choice.
Several years ago my Aunt Marcie got it and then around 2004 my father was diagnosed with it. He passed in 2007 due to an unrelated illness. I think he would have been glad for that. The Alzheimer’s was just starting to get worse at that time.
Peter Maeck’s father also got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, He wrote about his experience with his father during that time. After the introduction he writes of his experience in an extended lyrical narrative poem. I know that many people skip over introductions but I highly recommend you read it first. It gives a lot of important and interesting background information. It is not boring, I promise!
The poem it’s self is beautifully done. I am not a big fan of poetry but I breezed through it and enjoyed it very much. Maeck is also an award winning photographer and many beautiful and engaging photos are included in the book. I read the Kindle version and the photos don’t show up as well as I would have liked. I got the pdf so I could see the photos better. For that reason, I suggest that you buy the print version if your ereader only displays in black and white.
I am convinced that I will eventually have Alzheimer’s when I am older. I do hope I am wrong of course! Having witnessed its affects first hand, I found ‘Remembrance Of Things Present: Making Peace With Dementia’ by Peter Maeck a comfort. If you are looking for concrete answers, this book will not give you any. I found it more like a support. In fact, there are support groups popping up now a days for family members and caregivers and I think it would be a great book for members to read and discuss. Well written, well laid out, thought provoking, and comforting…For all those reasons, I highly recommend ‘Remembrance Of Things Present’.
5/5
View Peter Maeck on TEDx
Praise for Remembrance Of Things Present: Making Peace With Dementia by Peter Maeck
“I absolutely recommend this book. This book has touched me so much since my grandfather in his latter days suffered from dementia. The poems are so beautifully written and touching and I am so happy to see there is more awareness about this disease.”- Elizabeth M. Bokango, Amazon Reviewer
“I’ve had the privilege of attending Peter Maeck’s TEDx Talk about his father and Alzheimers Disease. His book ‘Remembrance of Things Present’ complements and beautifully illustrates his spoken prose and poetry on a difficult subject. He takes us on a lyrical journey from a relationship with his father through the confusing and anger filled diagnosis to a new place of acceptance of a disease that separates, yet bonds the two of them ultimately on a spiritual level. I recommend this book for all who have loved ones who may be facing similar circumstances. 5 stars for sure!”-Kristen Makita, Amazon Reviewer
“What a great little book! Moving, insightful photos integrated with passionate and creative poetry create a unique telling of the experience Peter Maeck had with his father’s journey through dementia. I had the opportunity to experience a live dramatic presentation of ‘Remembrance of Things Present’ by the author at a TEDx event. It was truly moving and entertaining. This book allows revisiting of that experience and creates a similar experience for others. Maeck demonstrates his unique combination of talents weaving photography and poetry into a book that everyone should read and reread.”-Amazon Reviewer
“Beautiful collection of photographs, poetry, and prose from an artist grappling with his changing relationship with his aging father, who has Alzeimer’s disease. From the first page, the author reaches beyond easy narratives we sometimes hear about aging – that life becomes simpler, for example. Instead, the author delves bravely into the grief he feels about his father’s dementia, and how their relationship changes as their memories take divergent paths. Ambivalence, hope, fear, confusion, anger, joy – Maeck approaches his feelings with extraordinary compassion, wisdom, and insight. Taught me to approach my own ambivalence about aging with more gentleness. The book, with its combination of text and images, is a moving and engaging read – highly recommended!! Will deepen your understanding of grief, aging, and dementia. A must read!”-Athena Torri, Amazon Reviewer
“I loved the all the layers in this book — pictures, narratives, confessions and inquiry. The author’s father is pictured, here swathed in a scarf as in a monk’s cowl, there stepping lightly with a walker, there standing and inhaling a harmonica. There are photos of children lost in reverie, and of old people at play. Women and men are on trains and beaches and at amusement parks. The accompanying text is a rich conversational musing, the author’s response to other authors and ideas – on aging, on art and poetry and relationships, and on what it can mean to grow older. The conversation concludes with a long tribute in rhymed tetrameter couplets, remarkable for it’s genuineness and poignancy. I expect to be looking at this book again and again.”- Daniel Chodos, Amazon Reviewer
About Peter Maeck
Peter Maeck is a multi award winning writer, photographer, speaker, and teacher. His plays and dance scenarios, including for Pilobolus and MOMIX Dance Theatres, have been produced in New York City, Europe, and Africa. Peter served as a U.S. State Department Cultural Specialist in Tanzania and Morocco. He has created sales and management training programs for corporations worldwide. His photographs have been exhibited in the United States and internationally.
Peter holds a B.A. in English magna cum laude from Dartmouth College and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Brandeis University. He has presented “Remembrance of Things Present” as a TEDx Talk in the U.S. and abroad.
Website: http://www.petermaeck.com
Photography website: http://www.petermaeckphotography.com
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/petermaeck/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterMaeck
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peter.maeck.1
Facebook- Photography Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Peter-Maeck-Photography/253144378061964?skip_nax_wizard=true
Facebook- Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/Peter-Maeck-Author-414391928926496/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petermaeck/
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Giveaway Remembrance Of Things Present: Making Peace With Dementia by Peter Maeck
This giveawayis for the choice of one print or ebook. However, print is available to the U.S. only. This giveaway ends on October 31, 2017 at 12 midnight pacific time. Entries are accepted via Rafflecopter only.
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