It Is What It IsIt Is What It Is

"What do you hold onto when dementia keeps taking things away? After decades of living abroad, Chantal Patenaude returns to Canada and persuades her seventy-nine-year-old mother, Pierrette, to move from California to Ottawa. With her mother nearby, Chantal expects to worry less. Instead, she witnesses troubling changes in her mother’s language and behavior. What first seem like “senior moments” eventually lead to a devastating diagnosis of aphasia and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). As Pierrette’s world grows smaller, Chantal steps into the unfamiliar role of caregiver and makes a simple vow: to make her mother smile every time she sees her. Some days she succeeds. Some days she doesn’t. Through each stage of decline, Chantal learns to meet her mother where she is, never losing sight of the woman behind the disease, and finding moments of laughter, tenderness and joy alongside the worry, frustration, grief and constant adaptation of caregiving. It Is What It Is is an intimate memoir about the realities so many families face when dementia enters their lives: the gradual role reversal between parent and child, the difficult decisions, the heartbreak of progressive loss, and the small moments that suddenly mean everything."--Publisher.