Still My Mom
Alzheimer’s Love, Loss, and the Work We Do Before Goodbye
By Mike Baker (Indie author, 2026)
Genre: Non-fiction
Via: Author request
Pages (Print): 272, including an extensive list of relevant Resources and poem, The Love It Couldn’t Take
Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book for honest review.
Some goodbyes take years. Love keeps showing up anyway.
When Mike Baker’s mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, his family entered a goodbye they were not ready for. The disease reached for her memory, her words, her confidence, and the ordinary rhythm of the life she had built. It also reached everyone who loved her.
Still My Mom is a raw, tender, and honest memoir about loving someone through Alzheimer’s. It is about grief that arrives before death, the strange ache of missing someone who is still here, and the work families do when the person they love begins to change.
Written with warmth, faith, humor, and deep affection, this book speaks to the families living in the long goodbye. It holds space for the hard parts of Alzheimer’s and dementia: the confusion, the guilt, the exhaustion, the grief, and the ache of wanting more time. It also honors the small moments that remain: a laugh, a look, a familiar touch, a story, a memory held by someone else when the person you love no longer holds it the same way.
This book is for families walking the Alzheimer’s road, caregivers carrying quiet grief, sons and daughters trying to show up, spouses learning a new version of love, and anyone who still has love to give before goodbye.
Perhaps the first thing you need to know about this book is that at its core, it’s a love letter. Still My Mom evokes intimacy, tenderness, and the bittersweet nature of the work done in the face of Alzheimer’s. It’s real and it’s raw. It pulls no punches about the realities of this devastating disease and how it effects friends and family members. Pages reflect grief and loss as well as hope, gratitude, and a quiet strength and grace.
The author describes this memoir as “A caregiving book written by someone who was doing the caregiving, not studying it. No clinical framework, no stages, no advice about self-care.” He’s spot-on. And that matters. Because Still My Mom isn’t a medical journal. It isn’t a clinical list of, “When you see this, do that.” It doesn’t walk you through labyrinthian mazes of “doctor-ese” – although it does note how skillful, truthful, and compassionate communication with healthcare professionals makes a difference. It’s highly readable, briskly paced, and written in clear language that’s easy to understand.
The text is divided into five main sections: Part One: Before the Disease Gets the Story. Part Two: The Work While There Is Still Time. Part Three: Caregiving Changes Everything. Part Four: The Hard End-of-Life Work. Part Five: After Goodbye. Also included is a Note to the Reader, a How to Use This Book section and a Bonus Chapter: The Work to Do Before the Mind Is Gone. (Dont miss this.) We appreciated the emphasis on caring for the caregiver and the warm family tone (“G’night John-Boy”).
The formatting is a little odd, with ragged right margins instead of full justified. Paragraphs appear in blocks and aren’t indented. But this doesn’t diminish the narrative, which unfolds smoothly and naturally.
Packed with practical advice and insight from someone who’s been there, each section and chapter is honest and forthright. But they also give you room to breathe. To be kind to yourself and your loved one. That matters, too. More on that in a min.
Frankly, we had a hard time with this book. It’s not an easy read. It’s not meant to be. So we could only handle a few pages at a time. (Kimber: That’s pretty unusual around here, bub. It’s almost like me eating a nice, thick juicy flank steak one bite at a time.)
This book is intense. It’s emotional. Incredibly thorough. Exceptionally well organized. Heartfelt. Eloquent and articulate. Beautifully written. Searingly honest and authentic. But there were times when we had to put it down. Walk away. Take some deep breaths.
And you know what? That’s okay. In fact, the author acknowledges that that’s okay.
Yea, verily. Alzheimer’s isn’t an easy subject. And Still My Mom isn’t a coffee table type book of the light and fluffy, lemon meringue variety. It’s heavy. But it also offers a way through the fog of initial diagnosis to final days. It counters fear, panic, confusion and uncertainty with clear, easy-to-understand language. Suggestions. Examples. It opens a way forward. Suggests a road through. And most of all, it offers a gentle breath of kindness and understanding with the constant reassurance of one vital, over-arching message: Alzheimer’s is tough. But you are not alone in the battle.
So again, Still My Mom isn’t an easy read. But it’s a good one, a garden where every sentence blooms with love. Indeed, the tenderness in these pages clings like sunlight to morning dew, refusing to let go even as the temperature climbs.
Bonus points: Every chapter wraps up with a Before the Next Hard Day section. This offers some concrete ideas for steps to take when a loved one is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Carrying love forward from page one to the very end, Still My Mom had one of us reaching for tissue more than once. (Kimber: I’m advising Mom to buy stock in Kleenex. Not that she ever listens to me. But you never know.)
Finally, if love could shine through ink, the pages of Still My Mom would glow.
Pages & Paws 