Don’t Leave Yet

How My Mother’s Alzheimer’s Opened My Heart

Constance Hanstedt’s journey toward independence, self-assurance, and connectedness as she cares for her mother who begins losing her identity through Alzheimer’s.

In Don’t Leave Yet, Hanstedt recounts facing her fears and rising above the past; her mother’s unrelenting bitterness regarding life, even as she loses memories of it; and her unexpected discovery of an emotion that reaches beyond familial duty: compassion.

Finalist, National Indie Excellence Awards

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“In this touching memoir, poet and writer Hanstedt tries to reconcile her suddenly vulnerable mother, who is slipping into Alzheimer’s, with the strong-willed matriarch of her childhood. When it becomes evident that her mother, once so decisive and sure, is suffering from depression and memory loss, Hanstedt and her older sister decide to move her (under protest) to an assisted-living facility. The battles begin as their mother begs to go home and complains constantly. As Hanstedt and her sister inventory their childhood home for auction and sale, items remind the author of growing up in a family that was often torn by her parents’ fights, her father’s drinking, and her mother’s demands. Although the children weren’t neglected, there seem to be few moments of love and tenderness. Interweaving these memories with the logistics of dealing with a lifetime of possessions and heartbreaking health-care decisions, Hanstedt works to understand her mother, forgive her actions, and accept her. Anyone dealing with an aging parent will empathize with Hanstedt’s struggles and find comfort in her honesty.”

 Ellen Bass, author of Indigo

“Don’t Leave Yet is a moving memoir of a woman maturing into her own independence, confidence, and connectedness as she cares for her mother who is losing her identity through Alzheimer’s. As her mother declines, Constance Hanstedt remembers back through her childhood, rendering these scenes with precise and often heartbreaking details.

This is a story that is being lived out in all its variations in so many families today and Don’t Leave Yet tells it with a clear and honest eye in a memoir that is graceful, vivid, and deeply human.”