Walking Each Other Home: A Caregiver's Journey of Grace

Walking Each Other Home: A Caregiver's Journey of Grace by Ann-Marie Murrell is based on the real-life meaning of the 5th Commandment and the importance of caring for our elderly family members. Walking begins with straightforward advice about how to get your house in order long before the funeral, avoiding some of the pitfalls Ann-Marie faced when hurriedly finding ways to help her parents after both were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Walking Each Other Home offers solutions for everything from organizing a house to the legal documents needed when beginning the caregiving phase. It provides invaluable information for anyone caring for their elders from early home healthcare to hospice. Walking explains Ann-Marie's firsthand experience with various types of elder facilities, including red flags to watch for in each of them. She shares intimate knowledge about how her family members were diagnosed with dementia/Alzheimer's, from the earliest signs of the disease and their progressions, to how each family member died. In 2024 Ann-Marie was also diagnosed with COPD and Early Onset Alzheimer's so her hope is that Honoring will help her own family in their caregiving journey. Walking looks at the faith-driven steps it took for Ann-Marie to leave her Los Angeles home of over 35 years to move to a tiny East Texas town and care for her parents. Caregiving is not always easy, nor is it for the faint of heart. Preparing for a loved one's ending is devastating enough, but dementia/Alzheimer's disease can either cause someone to become violent, like Ann-Marie's father, or drift and fade through a gentle, quiet storm, like her mother. And whether considering caring for elders at home or placing in a facility, the main theme throughout is God's 5th Commandment: "What is the best way I can honor and care for my parents?"