About this Event
PETALUMA --
Copperfield's Books welcomes friend and local author Teri Roche Drobnick to Petaluma in celebration of her deeply moving new memoir -
She will be joined in conversation by Bob Kahl, her father’s best friend of 80 years.
Join us for an intimate and heartfelt evening exploring the complicated terrain of loving someone through memory loss—and the extraordinary friendships, stories, and shared histories that can keep us connected even as so much begins to disappear.
Audience Q&A and book signing to follow the discussion. Registration recommended for seating.
In this deeply emotional memoir, a grieving daughter bonds with her father’s best friend of eighty years—and reconnects with her father—through the stories her unlikely new friend shares with her.
From the moment Teri Drobnick’s father is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she feels like he’s slipping away. As she grapples with an uncertain future and the steady erosion of his memory, Teri leans on Uncle Bob—her dad’s best friend of eighty years.
As Teri navigates the emotional limbo of caring for a parent with dementia, she and Uncle Bob, united by mutual grief, form a deeper bond from the stories he shares of his lifelong friendship with her father. Beginning with their boyhood during World War II, Uncle Bob recounts first dates, college at UC Berkeley, marriages, building a business, raising children, surviving loss. In the present, Teri confronts the anger, loneliness, and role reversal that accompany memory decline—but through tales of the past, she finds a way to reconnect with her father.
With a narrative braided between past and present, Our Long Goodbye is a poignant love letter from a daughter to her father that explores anticipatory grief, enduring friendship, and the profound power of shared memory.
Author: Teri Roche Drobnick worked in the medical field as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and now writes full time. Since losing her father to Alzheimer’s, she has worked as a volunteer community educator for the Alzheimer’s Association. She is the author of a children’s book, Moving Day, which Publishers Weekly called “charming, entertaining, and full of heart.” When Teri’s not writing, she can be found hiking or rowing on the Petaluma River. Raised in Lafayette, CA, she has two grown daughters and currently resides in Petaluma, CA, with her husband and her best friend, Hobie, a Goldendoodle.
Praise:
“...this memoir is about much more than Alzheimer’s...a thoughtful and universal meditation on the life and death of a loved one.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS
“With deep respect and a daughter's devotion, Drobnick explores the delicate power of memory and the friendships that shape us. Ultimately, her snapshots in time create a beautiful mosaic of anticipatory grief and unbreakable bonds.”—Samantha Rose, author of Giving Up the Ghost: A Daughter's Memoir
“Our Long Goodbye is a poignant, vulnerable, and at times heartbreaking story of how dementia leaves an indelible mark on our lives. Through the story of her dad’s life, Drobnick uncovers the power of dementia to simultaneously bring people together in ways we could have never imagined while also fundamentally changing the nature of those relationships. A universally resonant contribution to our understanding of what it means to be a resilient human.”—Kaitlin Casaletto, PhD, ABPP-CN, associate professor in the department of neurology at the Memory and Aging Center, UCSF
“With interweaving chapters that tell the harrowing story of a father's descent into Alzheimer’s, this is a tender portrait of enduring relationships. Drobnick is both a loving daughter and a brave writer, tending to her father both in life and in the pages of this beautiful book.”—Monica Wesolowska, author of Holding Silvan
“A beautifully written tribute that captures both the heartbreak of Alzheimer’s and the enduring power of love, friendship, and family. An absolute treasure.”—Cherie Kephart, author of A Few Minor Adjustments
“Told through Teri’s tender, observant eyes, this is a story about the true meaning of devotion: the agonizing pain of watching a mind disappear, the fierce beauty of a friendship that refuses to surrender, and the heartbreaking realization that love transcends memory.”—Mona Halaby, author of In My Mother’s Footsteps: A Palestinian Refugee Returns
“What a lovely, heartwarming story of two friends in sickness and in health. The importance of friends like Bob in the lives of persons like Bobby, suffering from dementia, cannot be underestimated. Bobby’s daughter brings the story of their friendship to life with warmth and tenderness.”—Gayatri Devi, MD, MS, FAAN, clinical professor of neurology at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and director of Park Avenue Neurology
Event venue & nearby stays
Copperfield's Books, 140 Kentucky Street, Petaluma, United States
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