Forever Today: A Memoir Of Love And Amnesia

(Paperback)

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Clive Wearing is one of the most famous, extreme cases on amnesia ever known. In 1985, a virus completely destroyed the memory part of his brain, leaving him trapped in a limbo of the constant present. Since then, every conscious moment is for him as if he has just woken from a ten-year coma, repeated in an endless loop. A brilliant conductor and BBC music producer, Clive was at the height of his success when the illness struck. For seven years he was kept in the general ward in the London hospital where the ambulance first dropped him off, because there was nowhere else for him to go. His wife Deborah compaigned for better conditions, hopelessly searched for a cure, and, in her quest to find answers, founded a national charity. As damaged as Clive was, the musical part of his brain was unaffected, as was his passionate love for Deborah. Finding there was no way to bring Clive back home, Deborah eventually listened to friends who counselled her to get away, and she fled to America to start her life again. She initiated a divorce, fell for other men, but found it difficult to forget her love for Clive. Then, miraculously, in their transatlantic phone calls she noticed Clive starting to recover some of his memory, and she was pulled back to England. Today, although he still lives in care, they are closer than ever, and they renewed their marriage vows in 2002. This is the story of an extreme medical condition that is a reminder of what it is to be human. It is a woman's quest to understand, control, and escape from a nightmare. It is also insight into a bond that runs deeper than conscious thought, a love overcoming the most tragic handicap.

Reviews

This is a harrowing, haunting and heartening book - a loss-story which is also a love story. It takes us deep inside the question of what it means to be human. -- Andrew Motion
Sometimes terrifying, sometimes very funny, and always deeply moving, Deborah Wearing's beautifully written testament to a love that survives all the ravages of her husband's amnesia is a book to seize the heart. -- Lindsay Clarke, author of the Whitbread winning The Chymical Wedding
A remarkable book: absorbing, moving and humbling. -- Fay Weldon
Loving, terrifying and often extremely funny, an astonishing voyage into the very heart of what makes us human. -- Deborah Moggach
I had the privilege of filming a documentary about Deborah and Clive and like the rest of the crew I was immediately struck with the extraordinary patience and affection with which Deborah dealt with this appalling ordeal. In Forever Today she takes us further than ever into this remarkable experience. -- Jonathan Miller

Author Bio

Deborah Wearing campaigned for specialist services for brain-injured people and helped found a national charity, the Amnesia Association (merged in 1991 with Headway). She now works as a communications officer in the NHS.