Kindle Unlimited
Unlimited reading. Over 4 million titles. Learn more
Read for Free
OR
Kindle Price: $5.99

Save $6.96 (54%)

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Audiobook Price: $17.46

Save: $9.97 (57%)

Read with our free app
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Buy for others

Give as a gift or purchase for a team or group.
Learn more

Buying and sending eBooks to others

  1. Select quantity
  2. Buy and send eBooks
  3. Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs

Follow the author

Jean Lee
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Alzheimer's Daughter Kindle Edition

by Jean Lee (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 444 ratings
See all formats and editions
What would you do if both parents were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s?

At the time of their diagnosis, Ed Church struggles to his feet, yelling, “How dare you use the A. word with me,” while Ibby wags her finger at the doctor scolding, “Shame on you.”

They protect each other, Ibby by asserting, “We’re not leaving our home,” and Ed reassuring, “We’re just fine.”

About his driving Ed defends, “I’m an excellent driver, I’ve never had an accident.” When their daughter, Rosie, finds dings in Ed’s car, he dismisses, “Someone must have bumped into me.”

After Rosie moves them to assisted living, convinced they are on a second honeymoon, they break the news, “We’ve decided not to have more children.”

In the late stages, they politely shake Rosie’s hand, inquiring, “Now, who are you?”

In ALZHEIMER’S DAUGHTER readers journey with Rosie Church from her first suspicions that something is awry to nearly a decade later as she is honored to hold Ed and Ibby’s hands when they draw their final breaths.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    281 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    February 2, 2015
  5. File size
    3009 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
Next page

Editorial Reviews

Review

One of the best Alzheimer's books of all time. Book Authority
Lee's motivation for her book came after discovering her father had no memory of her mother or their 66-year marriage just one week after she died. Lee states, "I thought I was writing about a couple declining from Alzheimer's, but many reviews have said this is really a love story." Ethan Palmer, The Villages Daily Sun, FL
Jean Lee wrote her book because it was the type of book she needed to read while on her caregiving journey, but couldn't find. Alzheimer's Speaks Blog, Lori LaBey
I found this book not only a sweet love story between a husband and a wife, but also a love story of a daughter and her parents, as she tries to honor their wishes despite the many obstacles this disease placed before her. Vicki Tapia, Somebody Stole My Iron Blog
This book offers a deeply personal glimpse into a family battling Alzheimer's, from its earliest stages - the odd forgetfulness, the tiny mistakes, to diagnosis, to denial, and end of life decisions, all told in a thoughtful, useful manner to guide others through this same process. Marianne Sciucco, Adventures in Publishing Blog

About the Author

Jean Lee lives with her husband in small-town Ohio, twenty minutes from anything. Although she worked full time while her parents were ill, she is now retired after twenty-two years of teaching elementary school. Her children are married with children of their own. Five grandchildren are her greatest blessings.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00T4TM056
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 2, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3009 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 281 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 444 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Jean Lee

Jean Lee

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Jean Lee lives with her husband in small-town Ohio, twenty minutes from anything. Although she worked full time while her parents had Alzheimer's, she is now retired after twenty-two years of teaching elementary school. Her children are married with children of their own. Five grandchildren are her greatest blessings.

After writing about the loss of both parents in her memoir, Alzheimer's Daughter, Jean became a cofounder of https://alzauthors.com. This unique blog seeks out authors of best-selling, well-vetted books written about Alzheimer's and dementia, collating these resources for those living with memory impairment and their caregivers.

Now Jean giggles at the keyboard while creating her latest books, Lexi's Triplets and Lexi's Litter of Three, featuring her triplet grandchildren, written through the voice of Lexi Lee, the family dog.

Her current writing project is Julia's Journey To Her Forever Home, written through the voice of Julia Noall, a Jack Russell Terrier mix, Lexi's cousin.

Jean blogs at http://jeanllee.blogspot.com.

Lexi blogs at http://lexitriplets.blogspot.com

Jean tweets at https://twitter.com/JeanLee18

Lexi barks at https://twitter.com/LexiTriplet

You can also find Jean on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AlzheimersDaughter/ and https://alzauthors.com

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
444 global ratings
Beautifully written and deeply touching memoir
5 Stars
Beautifully written and deeply touching memoir
Jean Lee delivers a moving tale in Alzheimer's Daughter. It's a story that connects to the heart of women who have cared for parents after a diagnosis of Alzheimer's or dementia,. Having both parents simultaneously diagnosed, however is inconceivable! This difficult story is told with care and compassion out of respect for loving relationships among parents and family. Thank you Jean for sharing, you light the way for others along this difficult and painful journey of caregiving.
Hide
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry, there was an error
Sorry we couldn't load the review

Top reviews from the United States

TheBobbit
5.0 out of 5 stars For sons and daughters of parents with Alzheimer's, more helpful than any textbook
Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2017
Verified Purchase
Alzheimer's Daughter is a sincere, honest and unflinching journey through the gradual and painful loss of parents long before their actual death. This book makes sense of what I'd read in several textbook "Alzheimer's 101"s, but gives it the emotional depth I've never found in factual/scientific accounts. And in my experience, it's the emotional aspect - the fear of "what awaits me when I see them today?", the confusion, the dread of having to overrule them against their wishes, the anxiety of knowing that they're only just managing to cope, and the nagging uncertainty of whether you are doing the loving, honouring thing - that makes it particularly difficult for children caring for their ailing parents. Having someone write this out is deeply validating and affirming: it really isn't just you, and simply knowing that makes it easier to carry on.

Jean's parents' love letters that bookend the chapters are deeply touching. Amidst the mess and dysfunction of the everyday, it's easy to forget the full, vibrant people they once were: young and full of hope. Those letters give the deeper context of the story, which is ultimately one of love through *all* of life's stages.

Thank you, Jean; you really helped.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
RB44138
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent read: A must for anyone who knows someone with Alzheimer's!
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2015
Verified Purchase
Character Rosie Church, in Jean Lee’s book, Alzheimer’s Daughter, shares the story of her parents’ simultaneous onset of Alzheimer’s and the reality that comes with this diagnosis. However, Alzheimer’s Daughter tells a story more involved and touching than coping and caring for declining parents. It is a story that embraces loving and respecting your parents while making difficult decisions when forced into the role of parent to your parents. From the first phone conversations between Rosie and Annette when dreaded suspicions are shared through the last mimicked “I love you” the reader is bonded with the beautiful souls of Ed and Ibby. Tribute is paid to the deep love they shared by their World War II love letters being woven into the story. This story is special in the perceptions the author shares, as well as the candor with which the challenges of Alzheimer’s are detailed. As I read, I felt honored to share such an intimate and personal glimpse in the lives of Ed and Ibby Church. The author’s insights, wisdom, and honesty make Alzheimer’s Daughter a compelling read.
4 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Melanie "Vaxxed & Masked" Gilbert
5.0 out of 5 stars Remembrance
Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2018
Verified Purchase
The Alzheimer’s literature continues to grow reflecting the increasing number of people diagnosed. Author Jean Lee helps raise awareness of this frightening and incurable illness through telling the story of her parents, Ed and Ibby Church, and their late-in-life simultaneous decline due to dementia. Lee does a good job of describing her parents before their diagnosis: stand-up members of their church and community, a successful businessman and homemaker, loving parents to their two daughters and devoted life partners. The Church family enjoyed a comfortable and predictable life in a small town in Ohio. These blessings and routines, though, were no talisman against the wanton destruction that Alzheimer’s brutally and systemically unleashes on these octogenarians.

Two things make this a remarkable book. First, Lee and her sister, Annette, are a formidable team, realistic about their parents’ challenges and pragmatic about the solutions. I enjoyed reading about them successfully managing their parents’ difficult decline. Secondly, the story’s ordinariness - written in a slice-of-life manner - gives it its awful power. If these salt-of-the-earth people can be felled, who among us is safe? The Churches, in their kind but sad goodness, tell us: no one. It’s a credit to this family that they shared such a devastating story as a service to others who may have family with dementia.

Forgetting is the curse of Alzheimer’s, but being forgotten is an even bigger tragedy. By telling their story - their whole story - Lee honors her parents while also bringing to light this dark disease.
8 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Kathleen H. Wheeler
4.0 out of 5 stars A dementia memoir and beautiful love story
Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2015
Verified Purchase
Alzheimer’s Daughter by Jean Lee is a triple threat dementia memoir with an unthinkable premise. One parent diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease is a crisis, two parents diagnosed with Alzheimer’s is a disaster. Dual diagnoses and decline at the exact same time is a tragedy of epic proportions.

Alzheimer’s Daughter follows adult sisters, Rosie and Annette, as they discover and manage the progressing cognitive impairments of their aging parents. Ed and Ibby Church are a loving couple in their eighties who’ve been married for over sixty years. Their two children are united in efforts acting as responsible caregivers to keep the parents they love safe through heartbreaking decisions, from the first telling hints of memory lapses through the inevitable end of life issues.

Lee’s familiar Alzheimer’s memoir format is elevated to a classic love story by the revelation of Ed and Ibby Church’s extraordinary courtship and marriage. World War II lovebirds, the couple’s timeless love letters are shared at the beginning of each chapter, written during their separation while Ed served in the Army. This touching correspondence adds a romantic element to keep the couple’s devotion, for each other and their family, central to their inevitable fate.

The dual diagnoses and deterioration, while difficult for Rosie and Annette to manage as caregivers, turns out to be the final blessing bestowed upon Ed and Ibby for a life well lived. The elderly couple’s oblivion to their plight helps them fade away together hand in hand, with neither forced to endure the other’s incapacity.

Alzheimer’s Daughter is a beautifully written tribute to the extraordinary love and lives of the author’s parents. The story offers a map on how to maneuver through the pitfalls of dementia care while honoring our parents with dignity and love through faith. The memoir reveals a modern day path many others will travel as dementia snowballs into an epidemic as baby boomers age. The journey of Alzheimer’s Daughter leads the reader through a tragic but rewarding love story with heart, like a true version of The Notebook.
3 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Deb Adamson
5.0 out of 5 stars A moving account
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 4, 2024
Verified Purchase
As I progressed with Jean’s book, I found myself sucked totally into her world of Alzheimer’s and all of the emotions that accompany this. In what could have been a depressing read, I was carried along by her narrative and found myself eager to know what happened next.
To have both parents going through this diagnosis and to read about their subsequent deterioration is beyond the scope of my emotional belief. Jean’s writing pulls you into her own hope, despair and guilt. She describes in details the episodes that both of her parents go through and this technique really brings home the world in which Jean was thrust and the level of her own sense of helplessness.
I appreciate that her faith got her through much of this journey and, whilst I don’t share this faith, I do understand how it maintained her and her sister’s sanity and guided them through the latter stages of her parents’ decline and ultimate death.
To accompany the more factual elements of the book, Jean uses some beautifully expressed lyrical language and this technique lifts the book beyond the factual: of her mother she writes: “I knew her mind was dissolving like the sugar cubes in the tepid tea, leaving only her sweetness behind…”
Equally, some of Jean’s observations were really spot on and resonate with my own (limited) experiences of someone living with dementia: “a physical illness does not demean the core of a person…” I can relate entirely to that.
Jean’s realisation that she “was grieving my parents who were still alive searching for treasured memories...” is particularly poignant.
So, whilst there is a great deal of description of her parents’ symptoms and the battles the family have to fight to ensure the parents’ safety (all necessary as part of the story) there is so much else to draw the reader in. The ‘back story’ of her parents’ love story and their letters from their younger days serves as a wonderful reminder that everyone who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s has had a life: they have lived, loved, laughed and grieved. And we would all do well to take this thought and put it into practice in our dealings with those living with a dementia diagnosis.
Thank you, Jean for sharing your parents’ story. It will be – as I know it has been – of help to so many others going through a loved one’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and I do believe that people will draw great strength for your experiences.
Report
Gina NETHERWAY
5.0 out of 5 stars Hits home
Reviewed in Canada on December 6, 2018
Verified Purchase
Enjoyed the authentic writing and love exuded by this diary of a journey through Alzheimer’s. if it’s only beginning in your life this is a must read. acquaint yourself with this true detail of a caregivers journey to the end. Well done describing one family’s journey through this terrible thief of lives!
One person found this helpful
 Report
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Well written and informative, yet tender and honest
Reviewed in Canada on October 27, 2016
Verified Purchase
A well written and organized story of a family's devotion and love stressed to the max by the insidious disease of alzheimers.
I laughed, cried , and learned a lot about the tough decisions that may need to be made against the parents wishes in order to keep them together and safe in the big picture
One person found this helpful
 Report
Booklover
5.0 out of 5 stars Familiar territory
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 25, 2016
Verified Purchase
Having lost my mum to Alzheimer's six months ago, so much in this amazing book resonates with me. I'm quite glad I read it in retrospect as I think it would have destroyed me at the time.

The thing that permeates every page is love - between lovers, husband and wife, parent and child, and siblings. I'm so grateful to have read it and that Jean Lee found t within herself to write it.
Report
Lorraine Garant
5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring
Reviewed in Canada on August 8, 2018
Verified Purchase
What a beautiful story. Told with such love and honesty. It makes you laugh and makes you cry. A heartwrenching yet heartfelt story of a terrible disease told by a loving daughter. This book is a true gift to her parents. So worth the read.
One person found this helpful
 Report
Report an issue

Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report