My father’s heart, and my mother’s, can still break. In this most essential way, they are still themselves. They are still here.

To stay together until the end was the deepest wish of Rebecca McClanahan’s elderly, frail parents. So when the two of them could no longer care for themselves, Rebecca and her siblings moved them from Indiana to North Carolina, where she and her husband assumed the roles of “first responders” with support from the extended family. Over the course of her parents' final years, Rebecca discovers that the landscape of dementia isn’t entirely bleak if we can hold on long enough to rediscover in our loved ones the essential selves we feared were lost.

Light Falls on Everything takes us inside the intimate rooms of long-term caregiving, where exhaustion, confusion, heartbreak, and grief can shadow the most ordinary days. Still, light flickers in even the darkest corners, revealing moments of tenderness, laughter, absurdity, surprise, and unrelenting love. Emotionally gripping and unstintingly honest, this memoir invites us to reflect on the timeless nature of love and loss and, with it, the unexpected lessons of caregiving: how to move forward into our own uncertain futures, accept grief as a longtime companion, and approach death with some measure of grace.

The book is published by The University of North Carolina Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

“Truly stands out, not just for its hauntingly beautiful writing, but for how it addresses caregiving issues from unique vantage points.” (Psychology Today)

“Poetic, unflinching, and unforgettable.” (Ron Rash, author of The Caretaker)

“I've never read a more precise account of the mysterious inner workings of the human heart." (Dinty W. Moore, author of The Mindful Writer)