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    A Is for Awful!
    A Is for Awful!
    A Is for Awful!
    Ebook39 pages6 minutes

    A Is for Awful!

    By Susan Shorter and Margaret Trimm Bachus

    ()

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    About this ebook

    My name is Margaret Trimm Bachus. For 25 years I worked as a writer, producer and director, creating professional plays for young audiences. Sixteen original productions toured to 3 million children and families throughout the Eastern United States and Canada.

    In 2007 my sisters and I lost our mother to Alzheimers disease. Helplessly we watched as this Awful disease took her memories, her dignity, and finally her life. To deal with our loss, we explored possibilities through which we could support families and victims of Alzheimers disease. The Sisters Trimm became our working moniker. We continue our involvement in the war against Alzheimers disease, and are especially proud of our Save the Story Creations. This is a creative process in which families or caregivers engage their loved one in simple guided memory conversations as Alzheimers disease wages its battle for control. Specially designed questionnaires, created by us, are returned to us and translated into "story symbols" - charms, jewels tiny collectibles, permanently affixed to a story vessel. The Save the Story vessels are beautiful, tactile pieces of art that aid in storytelling and recall. When it is time to say goodbye, these creations save the life story for generations to come.

    When I co-wrote a play called Vaudeville Jazz in 1982, I had never heard of Alzheimers disease. I just knew I had a story I wanted to tell. Vaudeville Jazz explored cross-generational love between a grandpa and his granddaughter as the grandpas memory began to fail. The play toured to thousands of children and educators. The Florida Endowment for the Humanities underwrote a statewide tour to Senior Citizen Centers where Vaudeville Jazz was followed by discussion. I could never have imagined how closely this story would parallel my own familys experience 25 years later. Revisiting the Vaudeville Jazz script after we lost our mother, The Sisters Trimm, determined that the story should be re-told in book form so it could be available to children and families everywhere. We renamed the story, A is for Awful, to better reflect the enemy we now know as Alzheimers disease.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateNov 12, 2012
    ISBN9781477284582
    A Is for Awful!
    Author

    Susan Shorter

    C. N. Lawrence was born on the island of Nevis in the Caribbean; she also lived on the island of St. Croix, U.S.V.I. She has two adult children and four grandchildren and makes her home on Nevis.

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      Book preview

      A Is for Awful! - Susan Shorter

      AuthorHouse™

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.authorhouse.com

      Phone: 1-800-839-8640

      © 2012 Margaret Trimm Bachus. All Rights Reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      Published by AuthorHouse 11/06/2012

      ISBN: 978-1-4772-8457-5 (sc)

      978-1-4772-8458-2 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2012920235

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed

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