When dementia enters a household, it often arrives like a storm – unpredictable, disorienting, and emotionally charged. But what if it could also be met with laughter, love, and lightness? Rod McCombie’s Every Day is Saturday brings a refreshingly uplifting perspective to what is often a heavy subject.
Inspired by his wife Jeannine, who was diagnosed with dementia in June 2022, McCombie transports readers on an intimate, poignant, and frequently funny journey. Every Day is Saturday reflects Jeannine’s charming view that every day is one full of freedom, happiness, and the luxury of no rigorous schedule. Once totally adopted, this way of thinking became a lighthouse for the couple negotiating the changes dementia brought into their life.
Professionally a Chartered Certified Accountant, Rod strikes a mix between emotional narrative and pragmatic knowledge. For anyone trying to grasp the subtleties of this illness, as well as for caregivers, his observations are not only helpful. By means of straightforward tales and honest introspection, he shows how changing points of view and relaxing expectations can help to lower frustration and generate unanticipated delight.
McCombie does not sugar-coat the facts of dementia. Rather, he exhorts readers to embrace the humour when things seem illogical, and discover grace in the most basic of events. The book provides comfort that all is not lost, even if sometimes rationality is lost; it helps one to understand a conversation that veers off course or celebrate a little flash of clarity.
This book is a manual for living well with dementia, not in spite of it; it is not only a memoir. It tells us that even as memory fades, connection, love, and laughter remain potent weapons. Every Day is Saturday is a kind friend full of advice for families, caretakers,and even doctors.
If you or someone you know is facing the challenges of dementia, this book offers not only solace but a spark of hope. It’s proof that even when the map changes, the journey can still be beautiful.
