United States – October 31, 2026 – Charlotte Conway announces A Thousand Small Goodbyes: The Grace of Loving Through the Heartbreak of Alzheimer’s, a personal memoir about her husband, Robert Lee “Bob” Conway, their more than fifty years of marriage, and the family’s experience of his illness. The book follows their lives from the early uncertainties of misplaced belongings and repeated questions through the demands of daily care, his death, and the years of remembering him. Throughout, Conway keeps returning to the man she loved and the life they built together.
The story begins with a missing set of keys. Bob searches the familiar places, checking his pockets and retracing his steps, until Charlotte finds them beside the milk in the refrigerator. It is easy, at first, to laugh and move on. But other moments follow: glasses that cannot be found, questions asked again within minutes, sentences left unfinished. Conway describes the explanations a family reaches for when acknowledging a pattern would mean admitting something frightening. Her account gives that uncertainty room to be understood.
Before describing what changed, Conway introduces readers to Bob as he had always been. Born in 1932, the sixth of nine children, he grew up largely in Tulsa, Oklahoma, worked from an early age, served in the Army, and pursued his education with the help of the G.I. Bill. He loved language, literature, and the satisfaction of a carefully completed crossword. He could recite poetry from memory. He also loved his ukulele, golf with his sons, and a joke told well enough to be told again.
Their courtship began at Union College. Charlotte was playing French horn in the marching band when she fell face-first into mud, got up, and kept playing. Bob, covering the event for the student newspaper, noticed her determination. They married on August 24, 1958. Their shared life included teaching assignments in the United States, three years in Tanzania, and time in Beirut, Lebanon. They raised four children. Those years of work, travel, music, and family give readers a sense of the marriage that Alzheimer’s would ask them to carry differently.
The medical appointment came in December 2002, after concerns had become too persistent to explain away. Conway recalls the testing, the diagnosis of early, progressive dementia, and the adjustments that followed. Familiar activities continued for a time, but the family gradually had to reconsider driving, walking alone, dressing, and the many small decisions that had once required no thought. Each change involved more than practical arrangements. It meant finding a way to help Bob while respecting the independence and dignity that still mattered to him.
Conway writes candidly about becoming a caregiver while remaining a wife. Her daughter-in-law Tammie cared for Bob during the day, while Charlotte took evenings and weekends. Together, they arranged routines, shared responsibilities, and stayed alert through difficult nights. The memoir acknowledges exhaustion, frustration, private tears, and the guilt that can accompany a need for rest. “I had become a caregiver in every sense of the word, but I never stopped being a wife,” Conway writes. Even the simplest tasks carried the history of their marriage.
Music gave the family ways to reach Bob when conversation became difficult. Conway remembers listening to his favorite songs with him at two in the morning, singing hymns together, and watching him stand beside the piano as family members played. There were moments of humor, too, including his amusement at discovering that he had dressed in two different brown shoes. These memories sit beside the harder experiences without making them smaller. They show how a difficult day could still contain a laugh, a familiar tune, or a moment of closeness worth keeping.
The grandchildren knew him as Pops, and their presence brought another kind of connection. They listened to stories even when details wandered between different decades. They played, sang, and sat beside him. In one scene, Caleb asks his grandfather to read a picture book, then begins reading aloud himself when the words prove difficult for Bob. They turn the pages together. Conway pays attention to such exchanges because they preserve something easily missed in an account of decline: the relationship continuing, even when the ways of expressing it have changed.
The later chapters address physical decline, the family’s efforts to keep Bob comfortable, and the final goodbye. Conway also writes about the silence afterward, when a chair, a pair of reading glasses, or a half-finished crossword carries the weight of an absence. Bob died on October 2, 2012. His children, grandchildren, relatives, and friends contribute memories that widen the portrait beyond Charlotte’s own experience. Their recollections describe his generosity, his willingness to help, his love of music, and the ordinary pleasures they would most like to share with him again.
The book also shows readers outside a caregiving family what daily life can require. Its details make the work visible: the clothes arranged each morning, the bell beside the bed, the patient answer offered again after a sleepless night. Such tasks can be hard to describe in a short conversation. Her account explains why those daily responsibilities could be so difficult to put aside.
Faith is part of the family’s daily life throughout the memoir. Prayer, church, familiar hymns, and the presence of others helped Conway continue through nights when she had no easy answers. She also describes learning to accept practical help and to recognize her own limits. Readers caring for a spouse or parent may recognize the pressure to remain patient while feeling depleted. Friends and relatives may find a clearer understanding of why sitting with someone, sharing a task, or allowing a caregiver time to rest can matter so much.
Alongside the family’s story, the book includes a chapter reflecting on Alzheimer’s research and a directory of foundations and associations. Conway’s interest in what may become possible for other families grows out of what she and Bob experienced. Her central concern, however, remains personal: that a diagnosis should never be allowed to stand in for an entire life. As she writes, “Keep the story whole. That is the best thing I know how to tell you.” A Thousand Small Goodbyes follows that conviction by remembering Bob through the people, places, work, and love that made him who he was.
Find “A Thousand Small Good-byes: The Grace of Loving Through the Heartbreak of Alzheimer’s By Charlotte J. Conway”on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0cCVU8bw
About the Author
Charlotte Conway is the author of A Thousand Small Goodbyes. She and her husband, Bob, raised four children and shared a life that included teaching, travel, music, and family. Her memoir draws on their marriage and her experience caring for him alongside their family during his years with Alzheimer’s.
Media Contact
For book information, interview inquiries, and review copy requests, contact:
Charlotte Conway
Email: cconway371@gmail.com
Phone: 301-512-5834
Media ContactCompany Name: Charlotte ConwayContact Person: Charlotte ConwayEmail: Send EmailPhone: 301-512-5834Country: United StatesWebsite: a.co/d/0cCVU8bw
