Like I Used To

In this novel Granny Estella is the matriarch of the Caldwell family. She's just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. This is a story about her race against the clock to pass down the family lore before she dies. She doesn't want all that history to be lost to posterity, and sees her own life as a large part of that rich history.

Her problem is that her family members are too engrossed in their own personal lives to have time to listen to her. Only her fourteen-year-old great granddaughter LaDora is interested in what she has to say. In fact, LaDora is so enthralled by Granny Estella's amazing life story that every day when she meets with her great grandmother, she takes copious notes. The teenager learns, for example, that Granny Estella, a former WAAC, shot down a German bomber while she was on a troopship going to Europe in the Second World War. LaDora learns much about what African American female soldiers had to endure in that war.

Estella would prefer to share her life stories with Sylvia, her only child, but the two of them can't talk to each other, going back to Sylvia's childhood. Their strained relationship has long been a source of trouble in the family. Sylvia, a good mother who gave Granny Estella plenty of beautiful grandchildren, isn't totally to blame for their lack of communication. The situation is much deeper than that. It's this "deeper" situation that this novel explores.

And yes, the novel also deals with the miseries of the Alzheimer Disease and what it's like to be a caretaker. This is an important read for those of you who have elderly parents.