My Ladies of Fairmount Street: Loved Then Scorned

My Ladies of Fairmount Street is a raw, unflinching memoir about what it means to love people who will forget you existed. At first, Craig and and his ladies were just neighbors, then we became friends. They had all been assembled on the third floor, independently, by coincidence-that is, if you can define coincidence as God's way of remaining anonymous. Each friendship was independent of the others-each friendship revealed a human being suffering in silence. As the ladies's needs grew, friendship evolved into caregiving. Love and compassion flowed freely until the hidden diseases began to surface. Each of Craig's ladies was different in her illness-dementia, schizophrenia, delusions, depression. Walking alongside these diseases opened Craig's eyes to the uncomfortable and sometimes frightening realities of unraveling minds. He stayed until their diseases erased the memory of their story, erased Craig.