When We Remembered Everything: A Child’s Understanding of Alzheimer’s Disease by A.B. Reckas
The Garden is a place of pure wonder. It’s where fairies rock their babies to sleep in rosebud cradles and gnomes carry mail to and from the Apple Tree—the hub of all great things, the giver of apple pies. It’s also where Princess Alison can retreat from the outside world that is always in a hurry and wants her to talk louder and say the right thing and be something she’s not.
Here in the magical Garden, she finds comfort while struggling with severe anxiety when her single mother is away at work. Before she leaves for the day, Mommy puts hugs into Alison’s blankie—hugs that she can use later if she’s feeling lonely. But what if one day the hugs run out and Mommy doesn’t come back? Always, she harbors a fear that Mommy will die—a fear she doesn’t talk about often because it makes the grownups ask too many questions.
There is only one true comfort: the Queen of the Fairies (who also answers to Grandma). She is the keeper of all magic and Alison’s light of safety. She chases the scary creatures of the Garden back into the shadows and never scolds the little princess for being shy or anxious. Instead, the Queen breathes power into her being with art and stories. One of their favorite pastimes is to take a treat from the jar and a pile of books, and then read until the hard candy and the hurt are gone and the pages of Little Red Riding Hood seem to taste of butterscotch. She teaches Alison to love herself and find strength in honoring exactly who she is—a daughter of Greece and Scotland with magic woven into her soul.
But something strange is happening in the Garden. The Queen is forgetting things that only just happened and struggles to paint the way she used to. She’s the greatest artist Alison has ever known. Why do her paintings look all wrong? When she peers into the Garden, Alison can now see the witch stepping boldly into the sunlight surrounded by her wolves with bloodlust in their gleaming eyes.
The witch has grown tired of hiding. She’s going to get her revenge on the little princess she always hated. Day by day, she fills the Queen’s mind with darkness. The witch is carrying out her evil plan in the worst way possible: destroying the Queen of the Fairies piece by piece.
The fairies flee as the walls of their magical Garden crumble, and the world becomes windswept and gray. The ones who have managed to stay don’t even recognize the princess anymore. And then a day comes when the Queen herself can’t remember Alison’s name.
It’s like she’s no one. Like she never existed.
As the final wall falls, Alison must learn how to keep the light of safety lit for everyone in her kingdom, while honoring a great Queen who can no longer hold the torch.
In a story that will appeal to “Bridge to Terabithia” fans, “When We Remembered Everything” is a child’s perspective of losing a loved one to Alzheimer’s disease and the journey to reclaiming memories of being loved beyond measure.
Even after being forgotten.