Brainstorm Road

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Memoir: Letting Go of My Father at the End of His Life

Who are you?

Andrew Benedict-Nelson

What is your project?

This is a memoir about becoming a caregiver with a parent you don’t have a close relationship with and don’t really understand. Over 21 months in 2021-2023, my family and I took control of my Dad’s crazy finances, moved him into an assisted living facility, attempted to minimize his suffering, and tried to give him a good death.

In this book, I’ll tell that story and try to provide insights for people facing similar situations.

Can we see some photos?

A link to your work:

What will you ship at the end of 6 months?

Having a full manuscript isn’t a realistic goal at this point, but I would like to have the whole thing outlined so I know how long it will take me to finish. A big element of that will be organizing my “research” (a lot of which is just texts and e-mails among my siblings) so I can recall what happened when. That’s the skeleton, and I can build the rest of the body around it.