"Jerald Winakur poignantly brings together his personal and professional lives in this healing work, a deeply humane and utterly forthright book of memories, lessons, and revelations."

--Edward Hirsch, author of Special Orders: Poems " Memory Lessons is a beautifully written and moving book that is both personal and universal."

--Christine K. Cassel, M.D., president of the American Board of Internal Medicine "A beautifully written account by a physician son describing his father's decline from Alzheimer's, Memory Lessons is a wise and lasting treatise about sickness and health, life and death, and the redeeming power of love."

--Abraham Verghese, author of My Own Country and The Tennis Partner " Memory Lessons is a searing, heartbreaking, and beautifully written account of a physician's battle against Alzheimer's -- among aging patients in general, but more personally as the disease slowly steals Dr. Winakur's own father. Like all fine literature, this is finally a book about what it means to be human."

--Tim O'Brien The story of becoming a doctor, and being a son. Jerald Winakur is a doctor who cares for, and about, the elderly. Dedicated and compassionate, he's a surrogate son to many. And yet, all his years of service helping patients and their families adjust to the challenges of aging did not prepare him for becoming father to his own father, who had become as needy as any child. In Memory Lessons --a tender and provocative book--Dr. Winakur writes about what it's like to be medical counselor to countless patients, while disclosing his personal heartbreak at watching his 86-year-old father descend into disability and dementia, his mother at his side. In both of these roles--highly skilled professional and loving son--he finds he is hard pressed to alter a course that devastates his dad and tears at his family. But he does what he can. A doctor who does his best to listen carefully to each patient in turn, who attempts to confront every problem with, as he says, "a reasonable fund of knowledge, a modicum of common sense, and a large dose of honesty," Dr. Winakur knows that there is much we can do by loving and listening. We all search for answers; we all want to do the right thing for our parents, but few of us know what that right thing is. Faced with caring for a growing sea of elders, Dr. Winakur reflects on his thirty years in the medical profession to consider the very personal and immediate questions asked by families every day: What are we going to do with Dad? Who will care for him--and how? These are urgent questions, and they're faced head-on in Memory Lessons with unflinching honesty, hope, and, above all, love.

杰拉尔德•温诺克（Jerald Winakur）

美国德州大学健康科学中心临床医学教授，“医学人文道德中心”副研究员。行医已逾三十载，专业是老年医学。同时，作为一个孝顺的儿子，他也有一个“很老，很老的老爸爸”，随着“老爸爸”的老年失智症日益严重，在六年中，他和父亲朝夕相处，目睹着父亲逐渐失去生活能力，忘却那些亲人间最美好的回忆，直至最终失去生命的气息。医者的无奈，人子的无力，让他拥有了这堂与众不同的“人生功课”。

2005年，作者在医学期刊发表《我们该拿老爸怎么办》（What Are We Going To Do With Dad?）一文，以儿子和老年医学专家的双重立场，讲述自己父亲的患病过程。这篇短文后被《华盛顿邮报》转载，引发了意料外的热烈回响，给美国社会带来了巨大的冲击，作者收到难以计数的读者来信，更受邀至全美收听率最高的美国国家公共广播电台，以及多家地方电台电视台接受访问。他的故事，感动了千千万万美国人，经读者要求，作者以自己的经历写成此书，希望人们能在其中找到直面生命的力量。