In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Amy Bloom
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Unsparing, honest, heartfelt, poignant, yet never tips into pathos.
Amy and Brian are cuddled up in a business-class flight to Zurich. They drink champagne, stay in a 5-star hotel, binge on chocolates and long walks. It sounds like a celebration. But three years earlier, 12 years into Amy Bloom and Brian Ameche’s middle-aged marriage, Brian began to struggle at work. He forgot things, names, appointments, where local things are. Things that used to light him up didn’t any more; he made odd purchases, started calling all four of his step-granddaughters “darling” instead of by their names. Finally, Brian – the admiring, engaged reader of all Amy’s writing – leaves a script forgotten on the floor, and confesses he just couldn’t follow it very well… The neurocognitive tests are clear: Brian has early-onset Alzheimer’s. Brian exits the neurologist’s office with his mind made up: he will go out while still on his feet, not wait till he is on his knees. And Amy will figure it out for him.
She does. And this book tells us how. The doctor’s appointments, the psychiatric evaluations, the nearly obsessive watching of films and videos about Alzheimer’s (Amy rolls them in furtive fits and starts when Brian isn’t home), the internet trolling, the collapses into grief, fear, exhaustion, resentments, tears and great waves of love – for Brian, for family, for friends, the kids. The quest leads them to the Swiss organization Dignitas – the only way there is for an American to privately, peacefully, painlessly and legally end their life of their own accord, on their own terms, with medical aid, sympathy, and respect. Even those states with right-to-die laws have requirements of residency, a confirmed terminal diagnosis and life expectancy of less than 6 months (Alzheimer’s can take years to finally put you out), restrictions on appropriate drugs, and other barriers. A friend of mine has said, “I figure as long as I have a car and a garage, I have a way,” but Bloom learns that with the advent of pollution controls and catalytic converters, even that may not work.
Dignitas it is. Screening is careful, many many documents are required; a wrongly categorized diagnostic code for an MRI nearly scuttles the whole thing, until Bloom’s heroic therapist steps in; a supportive sibling provides unstinting financial and emotional support – as do family members and friends on all sides. Bloom herself is a clinical social worker by training and practice, and perhaps a certain amount of… not distancing, but realistic, clear-eyed observation of what’s happening to her and Brian enabled her to write this experience with truth. She acknowledges failures, needs, frustrations, and fears; discusses how they decide what they will tell the young granddaughters about why their Babu didn’t come home from that trip. There is little in the way of polemics about why a voluntary death of this nature is made so difficult; simply telling their story in unvarnished, clean prose says all that needs to be said, and shows us how one couple made their way to the quiet, decent ending they sought and deserved.
An elegant, brave addition to the literature of terminal illness and death.
Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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