Myrna Marofsky

When my husband was diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer's, my most important role — wife — took on a meaning I never anticipated. And nothing I had read, studied, or experienced prepared me for what it meant to live on the other side of a dementia diagnosis.

There was no roadmap. No book that spoke to what I was actually going through. I heard plenty about the disease, but nothing helpful about my life alongside it. So I did what I had always coached the women I mentored to do: lead from both your heart and your head. Over five years, through all the beauty and heartbreak of loving someone through dementia, I found my way to what I now call CareLiving. It's not caregiving, but a mindset and a choice. A way of being that kept bad news from becoming a bad life, and kept my husband and me living and loving until the very last dance.

I wrote To the Last Dance, A Partner's Story of Living Lovingly Through Dementia, because it was the book I wished I had — honest, human, and full of the real world wisdom no one hands you at diagnosis. It's a memoir. Using concepts from that book, I co-wrote CareLiving: A Companion's Guide for Living Alongside Dementia. It's for care partners who are doing the bests they can and deserve a companion for the moments when they simply need someone to say: you are not alone, and you are doing something extraordinary.

Together these two books are my gift to everyone walking this path. I only wish I could wrap them both and tie them in a bow.