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Upside Down Daughter

  • Reflections

    A goodness that could bring you to your knees ~ In memory of my father

    Louis Brood of Mount Laurel, NJ passed away at home on February 1, 2021, surrounded by his loving family with the song “Danny Boy” playing and a kitty curled against him. Lou…

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    February 2, 2021 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Reflections

    His Love Defies Possibility

    You could put a piece of dry toast in front of him and tell him it was dinner, and he would tell you it was beautiful and thank you a thousand times.…

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    June 21, 2020 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Advocacy

    Reason to Hope

    I wrote the following caregiver narrative after being invited to share my story during the Reason To Hope breakfast hosted by my local chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association on March 28, 2019.…

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    April 13, 2019 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Vignettes

    A Timeless Blur

    February 10th. My mother has been dead for a year. We all went for lunch this afternoon to one of her and Dad’s favorite places. When our check came my sister suggested…

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    February 12, 2018 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Reflections

    Terrible Grace

    I feel as if I’ve swallowed a pail of glass shards looking between these photos, trying desperately in my mind to piece back together the last 7 years. Alzheimer’s disease bestowed a…

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    September 21, 2017 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Vignettes

    If Dying Sounds Like Singing

    Momma had another seizure this morning following 2 days of inconsolable, raving hallucinations. She’s been under hospice care the past 2 months and, until this event, had been showing signs of improvement…

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    July 7, 2016 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Vignettes

    A Pause As Long As Forever

    Dad tried telling me the other day that Momma was due for some medical appointments. He assured me this with such clarity and conviction, I believed for a fleeting moment that time…

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    January 26, 2016 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Vignettes

    They Never Told Me She Would Forget How to Sleep

    It is hard to describe the early days of an Alzheimer’s sentence. A gentle fog rolls in and lingers for a while, deepening ever so gradually until one day you wake in…

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    October 29, 2015 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Vignettes

    And will remember it to her

    The house is quiet but for the spring birds singing above the distant and continuous sigh of the highway. Momma’s bedroom door is ajar and I enter to find her lying so…

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    October 20, 2015 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Reflections

    The Longest Day

    I looked back into my journal from this day last year. My mother had been dead for just over 4 months and I was still thrashing beneath the weight of my grief.…

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    June 22, 2018 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Reflections

    Tapestry: Trailing threads into the other world…

    Ever since they were boys, my father and his brother Sam worked side-by-side 6 days a week running the family upholstery shop. A. Brood & Sons. That store was the lifeblood of…

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    April 30, 2018 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Vignettes

    Waiting to Wreathe Me Into Believing

    Last Christmas I poured my heart into finding us the most beautiful wreath. It was our only decoration that year and all I could bear as I witnessed my mother slowly dying.…

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    December 20, 2017 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Vignettes

    Be My Love

    Dad and I both woke up irritable this morning. He wasn’t interested in his breakfast and I always feel a little anxiety when this happens as I watch him push the muffin…

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    July 13, 2017 by elizabethgracewolf
  • Reflections

    Dance Your Heart Out

    Today I am celebrating my first birthday without my momma. There are so many things I want to tell you about the last 3 months but for now I’ll keep it simple – I…

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    May 5, 2017 by elizabethgracewolf
Older Posts

Elizabeth Grace Wolf

In 2010 my mother and father were both diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease within four months of each other. This is a glimpse of our journey...

Instagram

  • The whole house is vibrating with the sound of him singing the night away. I stand at the foot of his bed buzzing, watching his toes tap. I feel So. Much. Awe. This day in time marks eight years living back under the roof of my childhood home. Emptiness is not vast enough to contain the losses I have borne (and continue to bear) witness to. But the explosively alive JOY of this man - my father - singing his heart out night after night, is. #myfathermyheart #alzheimersdaughter #endalz #iamacaregiver #alzheimers #alzheimersawareness
    by upsidedowndaughter 1 year ago
    The whole house is vibrating with the sound of him singing the night away. I stand at the foot of his bed buzzing, watching his toes tap. I feel So. Much. Awe. This day in time marks eight years living back under the roof of my childhood home. Emptiness is not vast enough to contain the losses I have borne (and continue to bear) witness to. But the explosively alive JOY of this man - my father - singing his heart out night after night, is.  #myfathermyheart   #alzheimersdaughter   #endalz   #iamacaregiver   #alzheimers   #alzheimersawareness 
  • Pics from today
    by upsidedowndaughter 1 year ago
    Pics from today's National Family Caregivers Month Summit in NJ District 3 hosted by Congressman Andy Kim. Andy promised me months ago that he would not only cosponsor legislation to help increase care and support for families touched by dementia but that he would also work to weave together and amplify the already existing supports plus help to build a more robust, systemic infrastructure to help address the diverse needs of our community. I am so grateful to all the providers, caregivers, educators, and policy leaders who gave voice to this conversation today and came out to represent the people
  • "To convey dementia
    by upsidedowndaughter 1 year ago
    "To convey dementia's linearity-bending disease process requires that the reader approach what is being conveyed with a willingness to be bent." I'm heading into the last week of my next-to-last semester and this is the first line from the monster paper I'm wrapping up about younger onset dementia. This guy's smile reminds me why I'm doing this. * * * "How are you poppy?" I ask him. "We're doing fine." He is always "We" because She is with him always. With us. With me now as I retrace the last decade of my life, bending...
  • Post "Poopocalyptic" Bliss. It
    by upsidedowndaughter 1 year ago
    Post "Poopocalyptic" Bliss. It's been a while since I've had to use that word: poopocalypse. Which... This could turn into a profoundly more graphic discussion, or you could just imagine?? The clean version, which is much less despairing than the dirty one, looks like my dad's smile and smells like a freshly bathed human + bleach and carpet cleaner. Being a care partner for someone with dementia often means being involved with every single function of that person's body. At times, this feels like a shuddering horror. More often, I recognize it as the most intimate honor ever bestowed upon
  • My eyes are closed. What do you see?
    by upsidedowndaughter 1 year ago
    My eyes are closed. What do you see?
  • Has water ever tasted so good?⁣ ⁣ ⁣ "Forget what you know; don
    by upsidedowndaughter 1 year ago
    Has water ever tasted so good?⁣ ⁣ ⁣ "Forget what you know; don't bother to believe.⁣ Not-knowing is the only cup which can hold the world."⁣ ⁣ ⁣ ~From Versions of Ghalib: Ghazal I ["Everything sings, in each moment"] by Ruth L. Schwartz
  • Our morning sweetness
    by upsidedowndaughter 1 year ago
    Our morning sweetness
  • These first waking moments feel soft and immeasurable. If only I could tuck our whole lives into them...⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ The following Robert Bly poem took my breath away when I heard it the other day: ⁣⁣⁣ KEEPING OUR SMALL BOAT AFLOAT⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ So many blessings have been given to us⁣⁣⁣ During the first distribution of light, that we are⁣⁣⁣ Admired in a thousand galaxies for our grief.⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ Don’t expect us to appreciate creation or to⁣⁣⁣ Avoid mistakes. Each of us is a latecomer⁣⁣⁣ To the earth, picking up wood for the fire.⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ Every night another beam of light
    by upsidedowndaughter 12 months ago
    These first waking moments feel soft and immeasurable. If only I could tuck our whole lives into them...⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ The following Robert Bly poem took my breath away when I heard it the other day: ⁣⁣⁣ KEEPING OUR SMALL BOAT AFLOAT⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ So many blessings have been given to us⁣⁣⁣ During the first distribution of light, that we are⁣⁣⁣ Admired in a thousand galaxies for our grief.⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ Don’t expect us to appreciate creation or to⁣⁣⁣ Avoid mistakes. Each of us is a latecomer⁣⁣⁣ To the earth, picking up wood for the fire.⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ Every night another beam of light
  • Dad approaches the display where her framed face glows, crying "That
    by upsidedowndaughter 11 months ago
    Dad approaches the display where her framed face glows, crying "That's Nancy! She's beauty-full!" flooding the room with so much recognition, I have to gasp for air because he knows her again! She has come back to us!⁣ ⁣ Imagine stretching open a sheet, holding it taught from each of the corners, then dropping a bowling ball in the center. Her absence is that ball, and I am hollowed out at the heart of it, smothered by the world moving on without her. Grief is a heaviness that bends Spacetime. Some days the ache is so heavy, time turns back
  • Morning sweetness. Morning joy. Morning births a moment where everything that has been forgotten is forgotten and everything that we have ever remembered re-members us.
    by upsidedowndaughter 11 months ago
    Morning sweetness. Morning joy. Morning births a moment where everything that has been forgotten is forgotten and everything that we have ever remembered re-members us.
  • This #InternationalDomesticWorkersDay I celebrate all the domestic workers who are out there pouring their love and care into our families and holding our communities together. In the words of the movement, their work makes all other work possible. ⁣ ⁣ In New Jersey, as a member of @hihdomesticemployers, we are starting to organize with the hope of enacting a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in our state. Fighting for domestic worker rights is an investment in community care. If you employ a care worker, a nanny or a house cleaner please think about getting involved so we can join together
    by upsidedowndaughter 10 months ago
    This  #InternationalDomesticWorkersDay  I celebrate all the domestic workers who are out there pouring their love and care into our families and holding our communities together. In the words of the movement, their work makes all other work possible. ⁣ ⁣ In New Jersey, as a member of  @hihdomesticemployers , we are starting to organize with the hope of enacting a Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in our state. Fighting for domestic worker rights is an investment in community care. If you employ a care worker, a nanny or a house cleaner please think about getting involved so we can join together
  • The best part of these last few months in quarantine has been these sweet morning moments all together. Sure, there are hard mornings that don
    by upsidedowndaughter 10 months ago
    The best part of these last few months in quarantine has been these sweet morning moments all together. Sure, there are hard mornings that don't look anything like this. But most of them do. If I have learned anything over this past decade while caring for my parents it is that wonder is limitless. And in Casey's words, "Joy is the balm that soothes all aches."  #careisourcurrency 
  • You could put a piece of dry toast in front of him and tell him it was dinner, and he would tell you it was beautiful and thank you a thousand times. He would mean it with all his heart! Inside the bread, he would feel your hands placing it on his plate and toasting it before that. Inside the bread, he would feel the bread baker, the grain grower, the earth, sky, sun, rain, harvest, labor motion that allowed this care to happen. "Thanks honey. Thank you so much babe. Thank you."⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ His love defies possibility. If you
    by upsidedowndaughter 10 months ago
    You could put a piece of dry toast in front of him and tell him it was dinner, and he would tell you it was beautiful and thank you a thousand times. He would mean it with all his heart! Inside the bread, he would feel your hands placing it on his plate and toasting it before that. Inside the bread, he would feel the bread baker, the grain grower, the earth, sky, sun, rain, harvest, labor motion that allowed this care to happen. "Thanks honey. Thank you so much babe. Thank you."⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣ His love defies possibility. If you
  • I love him so much. His joy verges on ecstatic. I spend so many hours each day wondering how I can be more like him. #myfathermyheart #iamacaregiver
    by upsidedowndaughter 9 months ago
    I love him so much. His joy verges on ecstatic. I spend so many hours each day wondering how I can be more like him.  #myfathermyheart   #iamacaregiver 
  • I
    by upsidedowndaughter 8 months ago
    I'm still riding the tides of laughter and joy in the wake of our family trip to Cape May Point last week. What a feeling!  #myfamilymyheart   #myfathermyheart   #caringacrossgenerations 
  • I hadn
    by upsidedowndaughter 7 months ago
    I hadn't originally captioned this, but I'm editing to say: Even though these are my tears, I'm adding them to the sea of our collective grief. This is a post about solidarity and tenderness and wonder and love. This is a post about bearing witness and also being borne witness to. This was a very personal moment! I had no idea that Casey was capturing it on video. But when he showed me, I wanted to share it with you because - this man's heart - I ache for the goodness it bears into this world despite the obliviating reality
  • Today is #WorldAlzheimersDay. We have been living this ⁣ ⁣ multi-DEMENTIA-nal ⁣ ⁣ existence for going on 11 years. A total and gutting immersion into oblivion. I am trying to find the words to say what this existence has been, but the words are ⁣ ⁣ f a l l i n g ⁣ ⁣ TO ⁣ p i e c ⁣ ⁣ e s⁣ ⁣ Check out my insta stories to see and hear what cannot be said...⁣ ⁣ #endalz #iamacaregiver #grief
    by upsidedowndaughter 7 months ago
    Today is  #WorldAlzheimersDay . We have been living this ⁣ ⁣ multi-DEMENTIA-nal ⁣ ⁣ existence for going on 11 years. A total and gutting immersion into oblivion. I am trying to find the words to say what this existence has been, but the words are ⁣ ⁣ f a l l i n g ⁣ ⁣ TO ⁣ p i e c ⁣ ⁣ e s⁣ ⁣ Check out my insta stories to see and hear what cannot be said...⁣ ⁣  #endalz   #iamacaregiver   #grief 
  • This was utter improvisation... a moment of "restlessness" and "agitation" channeled into rejoicing: "You
    by upsidedowndaughter 5 months ago
    This was utter improvisation... a moment of "restlessness" and "agitation" channeled into rejoicing: "You've got a soul! And I've got a soul!" Brother encouraging Dad to sing what he feels...⁣ ⁣ This moment was so magical, so beyond the fathoming of my reasonable mind, that I cannot stop replaying it or feeling mesmerized by its beauty. (Full video on IGTV)
  • Louis Brood • my Poppa, my Poppy, my Heart • March 28, 1934 - February 1, 2021 I don
    by upsidedowndaughter 2 months ago
    Louis Brood • my Poppa, my Poppy, my Heart • March 28, 1934 - February 1, 2021 I don't know what to say or whether I'll ever be able to say anything again. He was my reason, my salvation. He embodied a goodness that could bring you to your knees. I am broken.
  • Louis Brood of Mount Laurel, NJ passed away at home on February 1, 2021, surrounded by his loving family with the song “Danny Boy” playing and a kitty curled against him. Lou lived his entire life in devotion to his family. He was the perfect example of a human - a man who walked the walk with pure unconditional love and tenderness. He made every aspect of life seem wondrous. He was the kind of man who would literally take off his shirt and give it to you if he thought it would make you happy. And when we say
    by upsidedowndaughter 2 months ago
    Louis Brood of Mount Laurel, NJ passed away at home on February 1, 2021, surrounded by his loving family with the song “Danny Boy” playing and a kitty curled against him. Lou lived his entire life in devotion to his family. He was the perfect example of a human - a man who walked the walk with pure unconditional love and tenderness. He made every aspect of life seem wondrous. He was the kind of man who would literally take off his shirt and give it to you if he thought it would make you happy. And when we say

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  • A goodness that could bring you to your knees ~ In memory of my father
  • His Love Defies Possibility
  • Reason to Hope
  • The Longest Day
  • Tapestry: Trailing threads into the other world…

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