Kate Bradshaw

_{Dave Iverson. Courtesy Dave Iverson.}

New memoir chronicles lessons from Dave Iverson’s 10 years with his elderly mother, and looks at how to navigate a broken system

By Kate Bradshaw

June 1, 2022

Around the time that some people start thinking about retirement, in 2007, Dave Iverson, nearing 60 and facing a recent diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, took a step in a different direction, moving back into his childhood bedroom in Menlo Park.

His mother, Adelaide, was 95 and needed more help, so he decided to become her caregiver.

Iverson spent the next decade of his life dedicated to easing the final decade of hers, caring for her until she died in 2017 at the age of 104.

Those years presented him with transformative challenges and growth opportunities, which he chronicles in his newly released memoir, “Winter Stars: an elderly mother, an aging son, and life’s final journey.”

During that decade, there were plenty of nights he’d have to get up at least three times to help his mother use the restroom; days when her dementia left her confused and afraid; hours spent carefully tracking when medications were administered and Ensure vitamin drinks consumed.

But it was also a decade in which he created two of the most impactful films of his career in broadcast journalism, ran marathons, got married and became a grandfather.

Read more at almanacnews.com.