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New Book Looks At Dementia’s Toll On Preserving Memories
People who’ve experienced the cognitive decline or death of a loved one, especially parents, often face the daunting task of sifting through a lifetime’s worth of their possessions.
When Lexington resident Russell Hart had to move his mother out of her longtime house after dementia made it impossible for her to stay, he was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of what she had saved.
Some of this voluminous hoard was practical, the rest sentimental — everything from bits of string to the carefully coiled leash of her beloved, long-gone family dog — and she had organized much of it in cardboard boxes cut down into trays containing individual compartments, he said. Despite this obsessive archiving, when the time came to put her schemes to the test, she was no longer able to explain them.
A lifelong, award-winning magazine writer, teacher, and artist who has exhibited his work locally and throughout the U.S., Hart wanted to make something positive of his undertaking. As he worked, he lovingly photographed many of his mother’s boxes, along with her home’s familiar interiors as he emptied it out for eventual sale.
Hart’s luminous and highly detailed images are collected in “As I Found It: My Mother’s House,” a new coffee- table monograph from art book publisher Kehrer Verlag. The author’s introduction provides important context, tracing his mother’s final years and explaining his need to create the project. Further texts and captions contribute a poetic quality to the work, making it as much a meditation on the pathos of objects as it is a portrait in absentia.
“I tried to keep the text sparing so that it would leave room for readers and viewers to recall their own experience, of caring for aging parents and preserving a lifetime’s memories,” said Hart. “I’ve been happily surprised that people who see the book often find something personally meaningful in it despite how much, on its surface, it’s about my own family.”
On Saturday, Nov. 16, at 11 a.m., the author will be signing copies of “As I Found It: My Mother’s House” and chatting with customers at Lexington’s Downtown Books, located at 34 S. Main St. He encourages readers to come by and share their stories of this all-too-common experience.
