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The Long Hello
A stirring memoir of a daughter caring for a mother with dementia that is sure to become a touchstone for many others.
The Long Hello explores the emotional rewards and challenges that Cathie Borrie experienced in caring for her mother, who was living with Alzheimer’s disease, for seven years. Between the two, a wondrously poetic dialogue develops, which Ms. Borrie further illuminates with childhood memories of her family, and her struggle to maintain a life outside her caregiving responsibilities. The Long Hello demonstrates how caregiving creates an opportunity to experience the change in a relationship that illness necessitates, one in which joy, innocence, and profound intimacy can flourish.
Written in spare, beautiful prose, largely in the form of a dialogue, The Long Hello exquisitely captures the intricacies and nuances of a daughter’s relationship with her mother. - See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.ca/Long...
Additional Info:
In this shimmering jewel of a memoir, "The Long Hello The Other Side of Alzheimer's," author Cathie Borrie traverses rich terrain as she unearths the hidden and often painful treasures of a life well lived: the shadows and joys of childhood, the relationships that leave us both illuminated and bereft, the love, longing and loss that surge to the fore when a parent is ailing. Memory, and the losing of it, serves as a powerful guide, and Borrie follows her mother's eccentric and poetic lead into the past, transformed by the unexpected brilliance of the elder woman's shifting dementia mind. A paean of redemptive beauty, "The Long Hello" cherishes the bond between mothers and daughters, and creates a startling change in society's perception of those journeying through Alzheimer's.
The Long Hello explores the emotional rewards and challenges that Cathie Borrie experienced in caring for her mother, who was living with Alzheimer’s disease, for seven years. Between the two, a wondrously poetic dialogue develops, which Ms. Borrie further illuminates with childhood memories of her family, and her struggle to maintain a life outside her caregiving responsibilities. The Long Hello demonstrates how caregiving creates an opportunity to experience the change in a relationship that illness necessitates, one in which joy, innocence, and profound intimacy can flourish.
Written in spare, beautiful prose, largely in the form of a dialogue, The Long Hello exquisitely captures the intricacies and nuances of a daughter’s relationship with her mother. - See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.ca/Long...
Additional Info:
In this shimmering jewel of a memoir, "The Long Hello The Other Side of Alzheimer's," author Cathie Borrie traverses rich terrain as she unearths the hidden and often painful treasures of a life well lived: the shadows and joys of childhood, the relationships that leave us both illuminated and bereft, the love, longing and loss that surge to the fore when a parent is ailing. Memory, and the losing of it, serves as a powerful guide, and Borrie follows her mother's eccentric and poetic lead into the past, transformed by the unexpected brilliance of the elder woman's shifting dementia mind. A paean of redemptive beauty, "The Long Hello" cherishes the bond between mothers and daughters, and creates a startling change in society's perception of those journeying through Alzheimer's.
350 pages, Hardcover
First published August 26, 2010
74 people are currently reading
802 people want to read
About the author
Cathie Borrie
5 books23 followersNEWS!
"the long hello" USA release date April 19th, 2016 with ARCADE PUBLISHING (SKYHORSE).
CBC Broadcaster extraordinaire, GRANT LAWRENCE chooses "THE LONG HELLO" as one of the BEST books of 2015, by local authors!
http://www.westender.com/news-issues/...
SIMON & SCHUSTER CANADA, January, 2015
A powerful, ground-shifting account of caring for a parent with Alzheimer's about which Maya Angelou exclaimed, "Joy!"
Since Cathie Borrie delivered her keynote performance at the World Alzheimer's Day event sponsored by the Community and Access Programs of the Museum of Modern Art, her self-published manuscript has won rapturous praise from noted writers and Alzheimer's experts alike, from Maya Angelou, Lisa Genova, and Molly Peacock to Dr. Bill Thomas, Jed A. Levine of the Alzheimer's Association, NYC, and Meryl Comer of the Geoffrey Beene Foundation Alzheimer's Initiative. Now it is available to the general public for the first time in a trade edition.
The Long Hello distills the seven years the author spent caring for her mother into a page-turning memoir that offers insight into the "altering world of the dementia mind." During that time, Borrie recorded brief conversations she had with her mother that revealed the transformations within—and sometimes yielded an almost Zenlike poetry. She includes selections from them in chapters about her experience that are as evocative as diary entries. Her mother was the emotional pillar and sometime breadwinner in a home touched by a birth father's alcoholism, a brother's early death, divorce, and a stepfather's remoteness. In Borrie's spare prose, her mother's story becomes a family's story as well a deeply loving portrait that embraces life.
Written in spare, beautiful prose, largely in the form of a dialogue, The Long Hello exquisitely captures the intricacies and nuances of a daughter’s relationship with her mother. -
See more at:
http://www.arcadepub.com/book/?GCOI=5...
Born in Vancouver, Cathie has had an extensive and diverse working life which includes careers in health, law and business. Most recently, she obtained a Certificate in Creative Writing from Simon Fraser University. Beginning as a nurse, she went on to attain a Masters of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, graduated from Law School at the University of Saskatchewan.
Currently she is the writer, artistic director, and one of the performers of concerts based on text from THE LONG HELLO, which includes a musician.
Excerpts from her book, The Long Hello, have been shortlisted three times in the CBC Literary Awards. In 2010, Cathie was invited to speak and launch her books at MoMA in NYC for World Alzheimer’s Day.
The Long Hello is a lyrical memoir which reads like fiction and appeals to a wide ranging audience interested in the universal themes of love, family, and memory - their twists and turns.
Cathie and award winning playwright and director, James Fagan Tait have adapted "The Long Hello" for the stage.
"the long hello" USA release date April 19th, 2016 with ARCADE PUBLISHING (SKYHORSE).
CBC Broadcaster extraordinaire, GRANT LAWRENCE chooses "THE LONG HELLO" as one of the BEST books of 2015, by local authors!
http://www.westender.com/news-issues/...
SIMON & SCHUSTER CANADA, January, 2015
A powerful, ground-shifting account of caring for a parent with Alzheimer's about which Maya Angelou exclaimed, "Joy!"
Since Cathie Borrie delivered her keynote performance at the World Alzheimer's Day event sponsored by the Community and Access Programs of the Museum of Modern Art, her self-published manuscript has won rapturous praise from noted writers and Alzheimer's experts alike, from Maya Angelou, Lisa Genova, and Molly Peacock to Dr. Bill Thomas, Jed A. Levine of the Alzheimer's Association, NYC, and Meryl Comer of the Geoffrey Beene Foundation Alzheimer's Initiative. Now it is available to the general public for the first time in a trade edition.
The Long Hello distills the seven years the author spent caring for her mother into a page-turning memoir that offers insight into the "altering world of the dementia mind." During that time, Borrie recorded brief conversations she had with her mother that revealed the transformations within—and sometimes yielded an almost Zenlike poetry. She includes selections from them in chapters about her experience that are as evocative as diary entries. Her mother was the emotional pillar and sometime breadwinner in a home touched by a birth father's alcoholism, a brother's early death, divorce, and a stepfather's remoteness. In Borrie's spare prose, her mother's story becomes a family's story as well a deeply loving portrait that embraces life.
Written in spare, beautiful prose, largely in the form of a dialogue, The Long Hello exquisitely captures the intricacies and nuances of a daughter’s relationship with her mother. -
See more at:
http://www.arcadepub.com/book/?GCOI=5...
Born in Vancouver, Cathie has had an extensive and diverse working life which includes careers in health, law and business. Most recently, she obtained a Certificate in Creative Writing from Simon Fraser University. Beginning as a nurse, she went on to attain a Masters of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University, graduated from Law School at the University of Saskatchewan.
Currently she is the writer, artistic director, and one of the performers of concerts based on text from THE LONG HELLO, which includes a musician.
Excerpts from her book, The Long Hello, have been shortlisted three times in the CBC Literary Awards. In 2010, Cathie was invited to speak and launch her books at MoMA in NYC for World Alzheimer’s Day.
The Long Hello is a lyrical memoir which reads like fiction and appeals to a wide ranging audience interested in the universal themes of love, family, and memory - their twists and turns.
Cathie and award winning playwright and director, James Fagan Tait have adapted "The Long Hello" for the stage.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
December 20, 2017
"The Long Hello is a memoir about caring for a mother with Alzheimer's ... that will pierce and heal the heart." -- Lisa Genova, Author of Still Alice
November 16, 2014
Stars: 2.5
My younger sister died five months ago today from ovarian cancer at the age of 48 so it’s quite possible that I’m just not in the right frame of mood to be reading and reviewing a memoir about a woman who spent seven years caring for her mother before she died from Alzheimer’s in her late 80’s. Nonetheless, the good people at Simon & Schuster enticed me into reading The Long Hello: Memory, My Mother, and Me by Cathie Borrie by using these paragraphs to describe it:
“It explores the emotional rewards and challenges that Cathie Borrie experienced in caring for her mother, who was living with Alzheimer’s disease, for seven years. Between the two, a wondrously poetic dialogue develops, which Ms. Borrie further illuminates with childhood memories of her family, and her struggle to maintain a life outside her caregiving responsibilities. The Long Hello demonstrates how caregiving creates an opportunity to experience the change in a relationship that illness necessitates, one in which joy, meaning, and profound intimacy can flourish.
Written in spare, beautiful prose, largely in the form of a dialogue, The Long Hello exquisitely captures the intricacies and nuances of a daughter’s relationship with her mother.”
After reading the book, this is not my experience of it. My 62-year-old cousin, who cared for her own mother while she was dying from Alzheimer’s three years ago, read it before me and she found Borrie’s to be very unlike her own experience and not as moving or profound as she thought it might be based on what we were led to believe by the above description either.
Another thing that caught my attention and makes me wonder is why Simon & Schuster chose to use the quote “Joy!” from Maya Angelou on the cover of the book because it hasn’t been published yet and Angelou died on May 28, 2014. If she did indeed have a chance to read this book before she passed away, I would have thought she’d have more to say about it than one word, but this to me is suspicious and the word is in my humble opinion, inappropriate.
Born in Vancouver, Borrie started her career as a nurse before attaining a Masters of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and later graduated from Law School at the University of Saskatchewan. In 2005, she earned a Certificate in Creative Writing from The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University. She is also a ballroom dancer and has performed in the theatre and as a clown. She has some impressive credentials but I don’t feel that this book “is immensely lyrical and moving” nor a “powerful display of Cathie Borrie’s talent as a writer.”
On a positive note, it’s a very quick read. I read it in two sittings. It’s written somewhat like a journal, almost in point form with the Canadian author flipping back and forth between her past and the present as she’s caring for her mother who is slowly slipping further and further away into the tunnel of dementia. However, I find that there is very little joy in this book aside from the often amusing things that Cathie’s mother Jo says as she’s losing her mind. Borrie recorded conversations with her mother so that she could write this memoir but her own emotions come across as flat and depressed, which I can totally understand that she would be, while going through such a difficult experience. When she describes the facts of her life, they’re just that, facts. The way she’s written them down it appears that she’s had very little joy in her life and maybe that’s the truth of it, I don’t know. She was, at the time of writing The Long Hello a 51-year-old single woman who couldn’t get her own needs met, but was compelled to do everything she could to help her mother before she died and that I can definitely relate to. But it makes for a sad, downer of a read and I was somewhat offended when she wrote this passage:
“My surgeon’s in his forties, easy on the eyes.
“How are things?”
“I’ve been praying for ovarian cancer.”
“You what?”
“So I’d be dead before you have to replace my hip. I figured it was a fast cancer so I’d be dead before my name got to the top of your waiting list.”
The things people say and write when they’re depressed…I’m telling you. We shouldn’t be allowed near a writing implement. I know this from experience.
Cathie Borrie’s mother left her alcoholic father when she was a young girl and soon after her 13-year-old brother Hugh was killed in a random fight with a neighbourhood bully. His, like so many others, was an utterly tragic and meaningless death. Years later, her mother remarried an older man who was always away on business but when he was home he didn’t want his wife’s child to be there because he’d already raised one family and didn’t want to deal with Cathie so she was sent away to boarding school, a fact that upsets her for the rest of her life.
Three quarters of the way through The Long Hello, Cathie’s mother asks, “What happened to the joy of life, Cath?” She replies, “I don’t know, what do you think?” “I think you thought it was going to be better than it was.” That is certainly a statement I can relate to at this point in my life and I also identified to Cathie saying, “I wish I was dead too. And when I’m old there isn’t going to be anyone left to take care of me…No one left who knows my story.” “Goddamn it, Hughie – why did I have to be the one left behind?” I’m sure that’s how many people feel when they lose a beloved sibling because I have and that’s exactly how I feel. And I didn’t need to read this book to be reminded of it.
My younger sister died five months ago today from ovarian cancer at the age of 48 so it’s quite possible that I’m just not in the right frame of mood to be reading and reviewing a memoir about a woman who spent seven years caring for her mother before she died from Alzheimer’s in her late 80’s. Nonetheless, the good people at Simon & Schuster enticed me into reading The Long Hello: Memory, My Mother, and Me by Cathie Borrie by using these paragraphs to describe it:
“It explores the emotional rewards and challenges that Cathie Borrie experienced in caring for her mother, who was living with Alzheimer’s disease, for seven years. Between the two, a wondrously poetic dialogue develops, which Ms. Borrie further illuminates with childhood memories of her family, and her struggle to maintain a life outside her caregiving responsibilities. The Long Hello demonstrates how caregiving creates an opportunity to experience the change in a relationship that illness necessitates, one in which joy, meaning, and profound intimacy can flourish.
Written in spare, beautiful prose, largely in the form of a dialogue, The Long Hello exquisitely captures the intricacies and nuances of a daughter’s relationship with her mother.”
After reading the book, this is not my experience of it. My 62-year-old cousin, who cared for her own mother while she was dying from Alzheimer’s three years ago, read it before me and she found Borrie’s to be very unlike her own experience and not as moving or profound as she thought it might be based on what we were led to believe by the above description either.
Another thing that caught my attention and makes me wonder is why Simon & Schuster chose to use the quote “Joy!” from Maya Angelou on the cover of the book because it hasn’t been published yet and Angelou died on May 28, 2014. If she did indeed have a chance to read this book before she passed away, I would have thought she’d have more to say about it than one word, but this to me is suspicious and the word is in my humble opinion, inappropriate.
Born in Vancouver, Borrie started her career as a nurse before attaining a Masters of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and later graduated from Law School at the University of Saskatchewan. In 2005, she earned a Certificate in Creative Writing from The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University. She is also a ballroom dancer and has performed in the theatre and as a clown. She has some impressive credentials but I don’t feel that this book “is immensely lyrical and moving” nor a “powerful display of Cathie Borrie’s talent as a writer.”
On a positive note, it’s a very quick read. I read it in two sittings. It’s written somewhat like a journal, almost in point form with the Canadian author flipping back and forth between her past and the present as she’s caring for her mother who is slowly slipping further and further away into the tunnel of dementia. However, I find that there is very little joy in this book aside from the often amusing things that Cathie’s mother Jo says as she’s losing her mind. Borrie recorded conversations with her mother so that she could write this memoir but her own emotions come across as flat and depressed, which I can totally understand that she would be, while going through such a difficult experience. When she describes the facts of her life, they’re just that, facts. The way she’s written them down it appears that she’s had very little joy in her life and maybe that’s the truth of it, I don’t know. She was, at the time of writing The Long Hello a 51-year-old single woman who couldn’t get her own needs met, but was compelled to do everything she could to help her mother before she died and that I can definitely relate to. But it makes for a sad, downer of a read and I was somewhat offended when she wrote this passage:
“My surgeon’s in his forties, easy on the eyes.
“How are things?”
“I’ve been praying for ovarian cancer.”
“You what?”
“So I’d be dead before you have to replace my hip. I figured it was a fast cancer so I’d be dead before my name got to the top of your waiting list.”
The things people say and write when they’re depressed…I’m telling you. We shouldn’t be allowed near a writing implement. I know this from experience.
Cathie Borrie’s mother left her alcoholic father when she was a young girl and soon after her 13-year-old brother Hugh was killed in a random fight with a neighbourhood bully. His, like so many others, was an utterly tragic and meaningless death. Years later, her mother remarried an older man who was always away on business but when he was home he didn’t want his wife’s child to be there because he’d already raised one family and didn’t want to deal with Cathie so she was sent away to boarding school, a fact that upsets her for the rest of her life.
Three quarters of the way through The Long Hello, Cathie’s mother asks, “What happened to the joy of life, Cath?” She replies, “I don’t know, what do you think?” “I think you thought it was going to be better than it was.” That is certainly a statement I can relate to at this point in my life and I also identified to Cathie saying, “I wish I was dead too. And when I’m old there isn’t going to be anyone left to take care of me…No one left who knows my story.” “Goddamn it, Hughie – why did I have to be the one left behind?” I’m sure that’s how many people feel when they lose a beloved sibling because I have and that’s exactly how I feel. And I didn’t need to read this book to be reminded of it.
January 7, 2023
This is a helpful book for anyone who is struggling with a loved one with Alzheimer’s. It allows the reader to feel as though one isn’t alone. The love and care that the author has for her mother is a beautiful thing.
May 22, 2015
I feel inadequate to the task of reviewing Borrie's book. It's intense, beautiful, insightful, spiritual and profound.
She describes the space of seven years of caregiving for her mother Jo who has a mixed diagnosis of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. During that time, Borrie did much more than provide physical caregiving. She made efforts to connect with her mother on shifting ground and through the complexities of their tension-filled relationships.
Borrie's book also shows how our memories affect present relationships and present identities. In caring for her mother, she has the time to think about the whole of their lives and their relationship over time as well as in the present. Borrie created a space where she created* something comforting, meaningful and transcendent during a time that could have been only painful, difficult, and practical.
I cried--in a cathartic way--from page one to the end. Borrie offers a bold look into difficulties of life and love and illness and self-discovery. And she brings an artful way of observing and expressing and creating out of the materials of her life that might have destroyed others. She does more than survive. As her dominate images instruct us--she's a dancing water bird! (Read the book to unpack that image. It's more powerful when you see how and why water, birds and dance converge.)
*(Yes, she worked on the book in significant ways outside of the literal time and space of caregiving, but her time with her mother was certainly the foundation of the book.)
She describes the space of seven years of caregiving for her mother Jo who has a mixed diagnosis of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. During that time, Borrie did much more than provide physical caregiving. She made efforts to connect with her mother on shifting ground and through the complexities of their tension-filled relationships.
Borrie's book also shows how our memories affect present relationships and present identities. In caring for her mother, she has the time to think about the whole of their lives and their relationship over time as well as in the present. Borrie created a space where she created* something comforting, meaningful and transcendent during a time that could have been only painful, difficult, and practical.
I cried--in a cathartic way--from page one to the end. Borrie offers a bold look into difficulties of life and love and illness and self-discovery. And she brings an artful way of observing and expressing and creating out of the materials of her life that might have destroyed others. She does more than survive. As her dominate images instruct us--she's a dancing water bird! (Read the book to unpack that image. It's more powerful when you see how and why water, birds and dance converge.)
*(Yes, she worked on the book in significant ways outside of the literal time and space of caregiving, but her time with her mother was certainly the foundation of the book.)
March 25, 2018
How do you spend seven years caring for your aging, dying mother as Alzheimer's steals her from you, piece by piece? Honest, raw, and real, I could not put this book down for hardly even a moment. Sometimes there are perks to forgetting your headphones when you go to the gym. Full review to come.
January 10, 2015
Appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press
January 10, 2015
How do you take care of your mother as dementia tightens its grip? What helps you cope when you remember clearly, but she does not? And where has she gone, this mother you remember and who used to remember so much about you?
A nurse, lawyer, writer and public speaker on Alzheimer's disease, Cathie Borrie struggled with these questions and more as a caregiver to her mother Jo. Thoughtfully written and deftly composed, The Long Hello: Memory, My Mother, and Me beautifully shares Borrie's very personal and compelling story about her mother's last years and how it affected them both.
Throughout the book, Borrie blends in her own memories of life with those of her mother and brother, such as when Jo left her husband and took her children to her parents' home in the night to escape his drinking. In Jo's confused state, she retells this painful story again and again.
As Jo's dementia deepens, the death of her son Hugh at 13 after a fight with another boy is also a source of puzzlement. In conversation, Jo often confuses Borrie with her brother or her uncle, failing to recognize her daughter.
Borrie cared for her mother for more than six years and chose to record their daily conversations. Borrie also had to manage Jo's anxiety when she wondered where Borrie was, why she wasn't there or when she would be coming over.
Jo's words were often confused and the meaning sometimes garbled, especially when she was worried about remaining in her home.
"'I don't know... I haven't got a moral yet. Still thinking about it. I'm thinking about any restrictions on going back home or coming here. I want to know what they are. I own this one? I don't, I don't own these others? But I understood I did.'"
In the ebb and flow of these conversations between Borrie and her mother, you can see glimpses of her mother's truest self amid the unguarded comments. She was a pianist, a lover of music and an avid angler, and these facets of her personality continue to shine through the haze of dementia.
Each section is a page or two long (never more than four or five) and can be read in little snippets or one sitting. The openness and candid nature of Borrie's prose blends with the rhythmic flow of a story told mostly in conversation. Descriptions are spare but enough, allowing the emotions of her story to stand out and establish a strong connection with the reader.
The Long Hello is as much about the caregiver as the one receiving care. Courageously honest, Borrie doesn't shy away from the pain she feels, the exhaustion of providing complex care to someone with dementia and the deep grief felt as memories slip away.
January 10, 2015
How do you take care of your mother as dementia tightens its grip? What helps you cope when you remember clearly, but she does not? And where has she gone, this mother you remember and who used to remember so much about you?
A nurse, lawyer, writer and public speaker on Alzheimer's disease, Cathie Borrie struggled with these questions and more as a caregiver to her mother Jo. Thoughtfully written and deftly composed, The Long Hello: Memory, My Mother, and Me beautifully shares Borrie's very personal and compelling story about her mother's last years and how it affected them both.
Throughout the book, Borrie blends in her own memories of life with those of her mother and brother, such as when Jo left her husband and took her children to her parents' home in the night to escape his drinking. In Jo's confused state, she retells this painful story again and again.
As Jo's dementia deepens, the death of her son Hugh at 13 after a fight with another boy is also a source of puzzlement. In conversation, Jo often confuses Borrie with her brother or her uncle, failing to recognize her daughter.
Borrie cared for her mother for more than six years and chose to record their daily conversations. Borrie also had to manage Jo's anxiety when she wondered where Borrie was, why she wasn't there or when she would be coming over.
Jo's words were often confused and the meaning sometimes garbled, especially when she was worried about remaining in her home.
"'I don't know... I haven't got a moral yet. Still thinking about it. I'm thinking about any restrictions on going back home or coming here. I want to know what they are. I own this one? I don't, I don't own these others? But I understood I did.'"
In the ebb and flow of these conversations between Borrie and her mother, you can see glimpses of her mother's truest self amid the unguarded comments. She was a pianist, a lover of music and an avid angler, and these facets of her personality continue to shine through the haze of dementia.
Each section is a page or two long (never more than four or five) and can be read in little snippets or one sitting. The openness and candid nature of Borrie's prose blends with the rhythmic flow of a story told mostly in conversation. Descriptions are spare but enough, allowing the emotions of her story to stand out and establish a strong connection with the reader.
The Long Hello is as much about the caregiver as the one receiving care. Courageously honest, Borrie doesn't shy away from the pain she feels, the exhaustion of providing complex care to someone with dementia and the deep grief felt as memories slip away.
November 1, 2014
I'm sorry it did not work for me. There is something touching in the pieces the book wants to put together, but the result is not there. I wish the author would have used her talent to connect all those shattered pieces. Her mother has Alzheimer's and it is awful, though touching at the same time. People end up talking like little kids, with the same cuteness. But it does not hold a book together.
The author uses her childhood's memories to give an idea of her mother before and to speak of her brother Hughie who was killed very young.
A bit difficult sometimes when she talks about her father, as she calls both her real father and her stepfather like that.
If a story had been made out of all those memories, it would have made a great book.
The author uses her childhood's memories to give an idea of her mother before and to speak of her brother Hughie who was killed very young.
A bit difficult sometimes when she talks about her father, as she calls both her real father and her stepfather like that.
If a story had been made out of all those memories, it would have made a great book.
March 4, 2016
I bought this book from Cathie herself, got it signed and everything! Then it sat on my dresser for a few months...I think I was afraid to read it because my grandfather had Alzheimers and my mother is turning 80 this year, and I just couldn't face it.BUT, I finally got to it a few weekends ago and couldn't put it down. It's lyrical and poetic, and stark and sparse and raw and exactly what it needs to be to convey the authors experience. In such a delicate way, in only a few lines actually, she reveals the awful way her brother died when they were kids, and the way her family dealt with this tragedy. She writes of men and of mothers and daughters and lovers and I can't say enough good about this book. Loved every second of it.
October 11, 2011
Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book about the relationship between mother and daughter, their back stories and how they got along put into conversations and thoughts. Discusses how she cared for her mother who had Alzheimer's. Easy read.
May 13, 2015
Not at all what I expected.
Interesting perspective, but can't say I recommend it.
Interesting perspective, but can't say I recommend it.
August 20, 2020
This book is hauntingly written about the complex relationship of mother and daughter, caregiver and ailing loved one. The raw poetic emotion of this book is overwhelming at times, and at others, soothing, as the love comes through, the bond, and the healing of shared grief. The heartbreaking decline of an Alzheimer's patient is something that takes enormous strength to get through and the author tells of the journey of her and her mother with such poetry, grace, and an open heart. I shed many tears while reading this book. Life is precious. Nothing can replace the bond we have with our parents/grandparents.
January 14, 2024
A raw sharing of a Vancouver woman's experience caring for her mother as she progresses with Alzheimers. Despite the other hard and painful memories of loss, abandonment, and brokenness mixed in among the transcribed conversations with her mother, Borrie maintains a relatively hopeful look into the oddly poetic experience of processing the past and present with a parent who is wading through the fog of an unclear mind. This book is likely to be particularly relatable and to any long-time caregivers or sickness sufferers who envy (and yet still stand in awe of) the freedom afforded to birds.
September 8, 2017
I loved this book. The story is both sweeping and wonderfully detailed, joyful and sad and bittersweet, and the author's love of and closeness to her mother shines through everything. The audio narration, by the author as herself and Jill (Eikenberry) Tucker as her mother, is the icing on top of a delicious, rich cake.
April 6, 2019
Alzheimer’s
Interesting account of a woman’s last weeks with her mother who is dying of Alzheimer’s. The mother who is 86/sometimes recognizes her daughter, but also lives in the past. The daughter ‘s frustration and desperation are clearly evident. A compelling account of the life of a caretaker.
Interesting account of a woman’s last weeks with her mother who is dying of Alzheimer’s. The mother who is 86/sometimes recognizes her daughter, but also lives in the past. The daughter ‘s frustration and desperation are clearly evident. A compelling account of the life of a caretaker.
August 29, 2019
This memoir details the author's caring for her mother through seven years of memory loss due to Alzheimers. Cathie shows remarkable patience and fortitude in dealing with her mother, Jo. Jo in turn shows lucidity at times. With more and more of us heading towards the caregiver role, this is a useful book to read.
July 19, 2017
What it must be like...
This is how I would imagine life to be like taking care of a parent who is fading away. Some of her descriptions in the book are brilliant...her use of words in the descriptions is clever and so spot on.
This is how I would imagine life to be like taking care of a parent who is fading away. Some of her descriptions in the book are brilliant...her use of words in the descriptions is clever and so spot on.
November 26, 2016
Cathie Borrie's poetic, lyrical voice mixed with quotidian detail and dark humor makes The Long Hello a refreshingly readable book about a tough subject. I couldn't put it down.
May 29, 2017
Having recently lost my mom to cancer, this book was a bittersweet reminder of losing a loved one and the memories that never fade.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 26, 2017
This book and I did not bond. Too disjointed, too sparse, I didn't get the depth of , what likely was, the situation.
March 21, 2018
A beautiful prose poem of grief, forgiveness, compromises, dementia, love and humanness. And a new kind of map for surviving the dementia of a loved one through curiosity, wonder and willingness.
July 15, 2018
Beautiful. Poetic. Cried throughout. It’s so human and her account is generous and emphatic. I hope to be as good when the time comes.
November 27, 2018
Such a good book, a tearjerker though!
December 3, 2019
Captivating and heart wrenching account of a mother daughter relationship through Alzheimer's.
November 9, 2020
Lovely, poetic, raw.
February 18, 2022
Beautiful and painful. The small moments of tenderness in this mother/daughter story are moving. Well done.
February 3, 2023
beautiful; warm; wonderful; lovely; enthralling; heartbreaking; fantastic voice reading from Cathie Borrie and Jill Tucker. Wow.
January 10, 2017
The Long Hello: Memory, My Mother, and Me
This is a beautifully written, heart-breaking book. The author became her mother's main caregiver for seven years while the latter suffered with Alzheimer's disease. In spare, poetic language, much is revealed about the restless daughter, obviously bright and with a fistful of advanced degrees (nursing, health administration, law) and passionate interests (dance, writing, travel), the tragic childhood loss of her only sibling, an alcoholic father who is absentee in all the ways that matter, and a much-older wealthy step-father. The mother is also resourceful and fun-loving but not much given to maternal self-sacrifice in some crucial ways.
This is a beautifully written, heart-breaking book. The author became her mother's main caregiver for seven years while the latter suffered with Alzheimer's disease. In spare, poetic language, much is revealed about the restless daughter, obviously bright and with a fistful of advanced degrees (nursing, health administration, law) and passionate interests (dance, writing, travel), the tragic childhood loss of her only sibling, an alcoholic father who is absentee in all the ways that matter, and a much-older wealthy step-father. The mother is also resourceful and fun-loving but not much given to maternal self-sacrifice in some crucial ways.
As the title infers, there is unfinished business between mother and daughter and as I've heard expressed, though not often, by other caregivers, there are amidst the jumble of sadness and lucidity and futile rage, moments of pure grace, a gift to the caregiver and to the reader. Out of the blue will come a sentence or a question and it will make perfect sense or it will reduce anyone to tears or to helpless laughter, sometimes in the same sentence. Borrie's eyes and ears seize upon these moments of clarity (she started recording the conversations with her mother at some point in the care-giving years) and she offers them to us like the compressed gems of understanding they are. For example: The author asks the pharmacist for advice after purchasing a large quantity of renewed prescriptions and other non-prescription pain relief, stomach acidity and constipation relief remedies, many of which are necessary to counter-act the harshness of the prescriptions on the human body.
“If someone you love is old and suffering and you look after them for years and years, how do you not go crazy?”
“Most people put them in a home. Visit once a month.”
From the tape recordings:
“What does sorrow look like?” (asks the author)
“It’s a form of sadness brought about on a gray and heavy day. I’ve reached the ultimate of the intimate and that’s the end of it.”
“Oh dear…Let me ask you, what do you think is the ugliest thing in the world?”
“A lack of dignity. Is that the right answer?”
“Tell me about the sky.”
“Oh, I don’t know about the sky. It’s pretty beautiful…but you have to wear gloves because it puts fingerprints on it and you don’t want that.”
Whether it's the pacing of this memoir (exactly right) or the excellent editing or the precise unfurling of a family's history --or a skillful mix of all the above, I suspect-- this cri de coeur resonates deeply with anyone who has experienced this disease. As it will for anyone who is losing or has lost a parent and who still yearns to understand why certain life-altering decisions were made, with such joy-blighting emotional fall-out, and why children end up as collateral damage, as it were. Despite it all, Cathie Borrie chose to do the right thing, to look after her mother when she most needed looking after, and to write this intensely wise and beautiful book about her experience. Highly recommended.
January 18, 2015
I received an Advanced Reader's Copy of this book through Goodreads First Read program, so I thought I would share my thoughts (which were not required as a condition of receiving the book.) Right off the bat I knew that I was going to like this book simply from the way that it was layed out. Instead of putting the whole thing in chapters the author wrote almost in like journal entry forms it felt like. Considering the nature of this book that was the best way to do it and it helped me connect with everything that was going on. The book is all about Cathie helping and coming to terms with her mothers Alzheimer. I liked this book from the very beginning simply because it was written by the daughter as a way to remember and cherish her mother the way she was not her dehumanizing her mother or only showing the terrible things that come along with the disease. While her mother wasn't perfect she did the best she could in the way she thought best and having to take care of two kids on her own things got difficult. The whole novel was a little jumpy as the author jumped from her past as a child to her present looking after her ailing mother I just wish the transition had been a little better in that sense. Cathie's father was not really in the picture her whole life and after the sudden death of her brother Hughie, Cathie's mother remarried and shipped Cathie off to boarding school. While she was there she was kind of became an after though to both of her parents and left alone a lot. This book has such a truthful feel to it, from the good and the bad, the feelings of love to the feelings of being overcome and helplessness, that I couldn't help but relate to some parts even though I've never been in this situation myself. I liked how it showed the love that Cathie had for her mother through all of it the struggles and the good times. Very well done I enjoyed it thoroughly.
February 21, 2017
Sad, heart-rending, well-written description of her mother's dementia.
(Read on Kindle)
(Read on Kindle)
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