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Memorial: The Year My Dad and I Stopped Keeping Score - A Mental Health Memoir
Win a free kindle copy of this book!
16 days and 18:11:16
50 copies available
U.S. only
A father facing death. A daughter battling despair. One final year to heal what seemed broken forever.
When Nita Sweeney's 66-year-old father receives a terminal diagnosis, she's drowning in her own darkness, the suicidal depression that has shadowed her for years. What begins as tentative golf outings on central Ohio greens with her father becomes an unexpected lifeline, transforming their strained relationship into something she never imagined possible.
The Year My Dad and I Stopped Keeping Score is a searing memoir about the reality of mental illness, conversations we wait too long to have, and connections we assume we've missed our chance to make. As Nita and her father navigate his final months and her recovery--from fairways to hospital rooms to impossible end-of-life decisions--they discover that it's never too late to truly see each other.
Unflinching yet tender, this raw, vulnerable book offers hard-won insights on grief, forgiveness, and what it means to show up for those we love. It's a testament to how a shared passion can bridge even the widest emotional distances.
If you've ever wondered whether it's too late to heal old wounds, this book is your answer.
When Nita Sweeney's 66-year-old father receives a terminal diagnosis, she's drowning in her own darkness, the suicidal depression that has shadowed her for years. What begins as tentative golf outings on central Ohio greens with her father becomes an unexpected lifeline, transforming their strained relationship into something she never imagined possible.
The Year My Dad and I Stopped Keeping Score is a searing memoir about the reality of mental illness, conversations we wait too long to have, and connections we assume we've missed our chance to make. As Nita and her father navigate his final months and her recovery--from fairways to hospital rooms to impossible end-of-life decisions--they discover that it's never too late to truly see each other.
Unflinching yet tender, this raw, vulnerable book offers hard-won insights on grief, forgiveness, and what it means to show up for those we love. It's a testament to how a shared passion can bridge even the widest emotional distances.
If you've ever wondered whether it's too late to heal old wounds, this book is your answer.
309 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 19, 2026
About the author
Nita Sweeney
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Award-winning author Nita Sweeney writes about wellness and consciousness. After a decade of legal practice (and a major depressive episode), Nita turned in her shingle for a fast-writing pen. People still ask legal questions, but she's done her best to forget the answers. Instead of negotiating labor contracts for public agencies, she writes, and shares what she's learned.
Nita's articles, essays, and poems have appeared in Buddhist America, Dog World, Dog Fancy, Men's Health, Writer’s Journal, Country Living, Pitkin Review, Spring Street, WNBA-SF blog, Pencil Storm, It's Not Your Journey, and in several newspapers and newsletters. She blogs and publishes the monthly email, Write Now Columbus.
She and her books have been featured on Health.com, Healthline.com, Livestrong.com, Fupping.com, PsychCentral.com, bpHope.com, Bustle.com, NextAvenue.com, UpJourney.com, Pawstruck.com, Thrive Global, WGRN, Sweatpants & Coffee, Authority Magazine, Intergenerational Inspiration, 2014 and Beyond, Medium.com, and Pretty Progressive, and in bp Magazine and Epoch Times, on the Word Carver, Running Dad, My Brain on Endorphins, and Diz Runs podcasts, and nominated for the Ohio Arts Council Governor’s Award.
Her poem “Memorial” won the Dublin Arts Council’s Poet’s Choice Award and an early draft of her memoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink , was short-listed for the 2018 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Award. The book is a #1 Amazon New Release in the “mood disorders,” “bipolar disorder,” and “running & jogging” categories.
Nita earned a journalism degree from The E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, a law degree from The Ohio State University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. For ten years, she studied with and assisted best-selling author Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones) at week-long writing workshops teaching the “rules of writing practice” and leading participants in sitting and walking meditation. Goldberg authorized Nita to teach “writing practice” and Nita has taught for nearly twenty years.
When she’s not writing and teaching, Nita runs. She has completed three ultramarathons, three full marathons, thirty-eight half marathons (in twenty-five states), and more than one hundred shorter races.
Nita lives in central Ohio with her husband and biggest fan, Ed, and her yellow Labrador running partner, Scarlet (aka #ninetyninepercentgooddog.)
Sign up for Nita's News here!
Award-winning author Nita Sweeney writes about wellness and consciousness. After a decade of legal practice (and a major depressive episode), Nita turned in her shingle for a fast-writing pen. People still ask legal questions, but she's done her best to forget the answers. Instead of negotiating labor contracts for public agencies, she writes, and shares what she's learned.
Nita's articles, essays, and poems have appeared in Buddhist America, Dog World, Dog Fancy, Men's Health, Writer’s Journal, Country Living, Pitkin Review, Spring Street, WNBA-SF blog, Pencil Storm, It's Not Your Journey, and in several newspapers and newsletters. She blogs and publishes the monthly email, Write Now Columbus.
She and her books have been featured on Health.com, Healthline.com, Livestrong.com, Fupping.com, PsychCentral.com, bpHope.com, Bustle.com, NextAvenue.com, UpJourney.com, Pawstruck.com, Thrive Global, WGRN, Sweatpants & Coffee, Authority Magazine, Intergenerational Inspiration, 2014 and Beyond, Medium.com, and Pretty Progressive, and in bp Magazine and Epoch Times, on the Word Carver, Running Dad, My Brain on Endorphins, and Diz Runs podcasts, and nominated for the Ohio Arts Council Governor’s Award.
Her poem “Memorial” won the Dublin Arts Council’s Poet’s Choice Award and an early draft of her memoir, Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink , was short-listed for the 2018 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Award. The book is a #1 Amazon New Release in the “mood disorders,” “bipolar disorder,” and “running & jogging” categories.
Nita earned a journalism degree from The E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University, a law degree from The Ohio State University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. For ten years, she studied with and assisted best-selling author Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones) at week-long writing workshops teaching the “rules of writing practice” and leading participants in sitting and walking meditation. Goldberg authorized Nita to teach “writing practice” and Nita has taught for nearly twenty years.
When she’s not writing and teaching, Nita runs. She has completed three ultramarathons, three full marathons, thirty-eight half marathons (in twenty-five states), and more than one hundred shorter races.
Nita lives in central Ohio with her husband and biggest fan, Ed, and her yellow Labrador running partner, Scarlet (aka #ninetyninepercentgooddog.)
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 26, 2026
I am a huge fan of Nita Sweeney's writing, so I'd been eagerly awaiting her latest. And did it deliver! I always appreciate the candor and transparency in her writing, and Depression Hates a Moving Target book was such a prime example. This book, however, delves deeply into some of the author's darkest mental health struggles, told through the lens of her once-strained relationship with her father. Explores heavy issues with the same candor, sensitivity and grace. If you're exploring your own old wound—or support someone who is—this book is for you.
June 23, 2026
Nita Sweeney masterly hooks us in the first chapter. Sweeney reveals all the details of her life with compassion, without oversharing. We get the whole picture. She reports the details over a couple of years, transitioning to stories from years past in a natural way. I felt the epilogue in my gut. She could stop writing now having written a great book, but something tells me she won't...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews