Motherhood: Lost and Found takes the reader on a journey where Alzheimer’s disease and infertility intersect. At age 33, award-winning author and poet Ann Campanella returns to her home state of North Carolina ready to build a horse farm and start a family. Ann’s foundation is shaken when she experiences multiple miscarriages at the same time her mother spirals into Alzheimer’s. The author’s … devotion to her family and her horse Crimson sustain her as her mother’s illness progresses and her own window of potential motherhood begins to close.
The voice in Ann’s memoir has been called constant and abiding, her imagery indelible. Her graceful, exacting language rises above the grief of infertility and the struggle to care for aging parents, connecting the reader ultimately to the heartbeat and resilience of the human experience.
This memoir was a finalist in the Next Generation Independent Book Awards, the world’s largest not-for-profit independent book awards.
Praise for Motherhood: Lost and Found:
“Ann Campanella’s Motherhood: Lost and Found is a chronicle of family tragedy and triumph told in some of the most truly lyrical writing you’ll ever encounter. She writes of grief and loss with heart wrenching honesty but without sentimentality then adds humor in such unexpected places I found myself laughing and crying all on the same page. This is the best memoir I’ve read in years….”- Judith Minthorn Stacy, author of Maggie Sweet, winner of the Carolina Novel Award
“The book is about … the love of a family … and how that love sustained them during a long and painful crisis, and how Ann’s relationship with her husband Joel was deepened and enriched by that crisis, and how three generations are better than two. Motherhood: Lost and Found has much to teach us all as human beings.”- Anthony (Tony) Abbott, Professor Emeritus at Davidson College, author of Leaving Maggie Hope, winner of the Novello Festival Press Book Award
“A sensitive, in-depth study of one woman’s slow descent into Alzheimer’s as detailed by her daughter, Motherhood: Lost and Found involves us in the dynamic of a multi-generational family as well as the author’s own story: horses, poetry, three terrible miscarriages, and in her 41st year, a final miracle.” – Maxine Kumin, Pulitzer Prize winning poet
“Ann Campanella’s Motherhood: Lost and Found records the ordinary and extraordinary courage of those who must endure debilitating, even crushing illness and those who must suffer with them while they do so. Here is bravery, patience, reconciliation, and — at long last — hope. I found this story valuable in an intensely personal way. I think others readers will find it so too.”- Fred Chappell, former Poet Laureate of North Carolina
“I was so deeply touched by this memoir. Anyone with children or aging parents will be moved by this searingly honest story. Ann struggled with infertility at the same time she was trying to care for her mother with Alzheimer’s. In a clear-eyed way, she explores how her family navigated the suffering caused by her mother’s illness, and her own heartbreak of multiple miscarriages. Every sentence is beautifully crafted, with a poet’s attention to detail. The images are indelible, and in the end, the reader is completely uplifted by love and hope.” – Lisa Willliams Kline, award-winning author
About the Author
Formerly a magazine and newspaper editor, Ann Campanella writes creative nonfiction and poetry. After a chain of personal hardships, including a series of miscarriages and her mother becoming ill with Alzheimer’s, she felt compelled to share her story. She is the author of several collections of poetry including the award-winning What Flies Away. Her work has been published in local and national journals and anthologies. She lives on a small horse farm in North Carolina with her family and animals. To learn more about the author, visit her website at www.anncampanella.com and at Amazon Author page.
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Ann Campanella shares her incredible journey in this beautifully written, poignant story that encompasses so many aspects of caregiving over a long period of time. From the first disturbing signs of cognitive decline in her mother, to the acceptance of full-blown dementia, she takes on one of the most difficult jobs that exists and becomes enmeshed in managing every aspect of her mother’s well-being. At the same time, she becomes responsible for dealing with her father’s mental and emotional health as his life is upended by his wife’s dementia.
With each such book I read that’s written by caregivers, I’m always amazed at the courage that’s needed to adapt to and act upon the changes that inevitably occur with dementia-afflicted loved ones. In Ms. Campanella’s case, I was further astounded at the level of responsibility she assumed when she had so many other issues facing her, including her great desire to have children and the heartbreak she endures when she has several miscarriages. She also has responsibility to her own horses and her business, which includes boarding horses, and giving riding lessons. Her husband supports her, but his business takes him out of the country so often that he can’t lend the level of support she needs. Her siblings are, fortunately, caring and involved; but the greatest responsibility falls to Ann.
Despite the frustrations, disappointments and responsibilities beyond what most people could seemingly endure, Ann never lets up in her quest to ensure both parents are receiving the care they need, and she does it with a great deal of love, compassion and kindness.
I’ll refrain from spoilers, but will say that the story takes a turn that affirms how precious life is, from the moment we’re born into it, to the moment we pass out of it. Ann’s story is eye-opening and informative while being inspirational and touching. Highly recommended for providing strength, comfort and confidence to those who are or may become caregivers, and for anyone who just wants to read a moving and unforgettable story.
Author/poet Ann Campanella shares her journey through heartache and loss with such beautiful, insightful prose, I often had to pause to let the significance of her observations linger. It is easy to see why she was drawn to poetry: she has the gift of being able to see what is right before us but is often overlooked, summing up almost any experience with graceful perception.
The author tells the story of a two-headed dragon that threatens to rob her of her beloved mother and the chance of someday being a mother to her own children. Being so attuned to the world around her in ways most of us aren’t, she recognizes at the onset of her mother’s dementia and her body’s inability to sustain a pregnancy that the things she prizes most are in jeopardy. Throughout her mother’s mental and physical deterioration and her own miscarriages stemming from a variety of causes, she consciously evaluates her future without those two important factors in her life.
While spreading herself as thin as she can—between her parents and siblings, her horse facility, her students, and her beloved horse, Crimson—she must deal with the absence of her husband, whose job keeps him away from home most of the time. These are lonely, trying years, peppered with failed attempts at bringing a new life into the world.
The unexpected upside to this very personal story is the solidarity the author feels with her parents, two brothers and a sister, and her tribal, extended family. Though her father’s decline leaves her with more responsibilities—finances, driving and being the rock for her mother—being part of a much larger whole brings many healing rewards. She demonstrates quite brilliantly all the pros and cons of having kin close by, people who will love and support you through anything and everything, even when they as individuals may complicate your own life.
This is a beautiful, heartbreaking and heartwarming story. So many of the author’s experiences and observations brought me to tears. But her story, like life itself, is full and I silently cheered as she took all her disappointments and agonies in stride, even when it seemed that her life was never going to get better.
We breeze through life without giving much of a thought to those who are always there in the background – our parents. It isn’t until they suddenly age and become ill we realise how much they mean to us, how much support they give us.
This incredible book is a heart rendering memoir of the slow deterioration of the author’s parents, all told against the backdrop of her own struggles to become a mother.
Ann Campanella’s memoir on the ever-changing relationship between a loved one suffering from Alzheimer’s and her caregiver is heartwarming at times, devastating at others, but it never ceases to ring emotionally true. If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to suddenly make room in your life for the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease there’s no better place to go for comfort and expertise, or simply to be reminded of the beauty and strength within each of our souls than to dive into the pages of Motherhood: Lost and Found. Campanella’s beautifully written memoir about a public health crisis that threatens to affect us all in the coming years is a masterpiece. One of the best books I’ve ever read on the subject of Alzheimer’s!