By Michelle Spray
Waiting for the Mailman is a wonderfully written and much-needed children’s book about Alzheimer’s. It details the progression from dementia in easy language from the point of view of Niki, whose Grandma Louise lived with them. Niki loved to have cookie dunking contests with Grandma to see how long the cookie stayed in the milk without crumbling! “Our very favorite thing to do was to laugh and tell stories together while sitting in the kitchen. She taught me the importance of staying strong and being true to my authentic self. … Sometimes Grandma would look all over the house for something that she had misplaced. I lose stuff all the time, but for some reason when Grandma couldn’t find something she would get really upset. I think it was because she was losing things more and more. One day, Grandma even lost herself. The police found her and brought her back home safely. She peeked in the doorway but still looked confused … Grandma loved to wait for the mailman, even if he’d already delivered the mail! She waited and waited and waited. Every time she walked to the mailbox she wore her winter coat and hat, even in the hot summer.”
Niki shares stories about Grandma; the time she left the stove on and the house filled with smoke, how she stopped wanting to play cards and began repeat phrases. The day Grandma didn’t recognize her, she tried not to cry. “I soon stopped trying to make her know me because it made her upset. Instead, I smiled, and tried to make her smile with a song or a poem that she might remember from her childhood. In time, she forgot a lot more things, but that’s okay because I knew to expect it.”
Illustrator Valeria Leonova, beautifully captures special moments, for example, when Niki helped feed Grandma when she had forgotten how. “She looked me in the eyes and we smiled. She didn’t remember me, but she knew I loved her and that’s all that mattered … I made Grandma special cards and memories to look at. I knew that she liked them even though she could no longer tell me she did. I didn’t know that long after Grandma was gone, these items would become my most cherished possessions…”
In the book Waiting for the Mailman, author Michelle Spray provides a glimpse into her own experience living with her grandmother 
who battled Alzheimer’s. An integral book to explain dementia related symptoms or excessive forgetfulness, it captures the emotions and resolve necessary to endure the journey, helping both children and adults understand the process; thus ending the stigma associated with this diagnosis.
Waiting for the Mailman is one of over a dozen books in this author’s repertoire that tackles health related challenges with honesty, TLC, and an underlying theme of hope. All of her books can be found on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/michellespray. Connect with Michelle on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram: @SprayBooksEtc.
Click here to view Michelle’s COVID-19 YouTube Video.
You can read Michelle Spray’s detailed Alzheimer’s journey with Grandma in her novella Lost Memories Found Hope: A Granddaughter’s Story of Love throughout Alzheimer’s. 
