Review of "Stories of My Dad as He Lay Dying" by Dr. Angela Arias

Score: 95/100 (9.5 out of 10)

The loss of a loved one is often among the most traumatic events in a person's life. It can be heartbreaking. It can earth-shattering. It can split a family’s world into a before and an after, leaving everyone to figure out how to keep living with a piece of themselves missing.

But grief is not only made of tears. Sometimes, grief is also made of stories, memories, and little moments. Jokes. Songs. Old memories. Family sayings. A familiar look. A piece of jewelry. A medical device turned into a crown.

That is one of the reasons Stories of My Dad as He Lay Dying by Dr. Angela Arias is such a beautiful and charming memoir. Well, that and it's written by a genuinely amazing and fascinating human being. Angela Arias has a doctorate from Walden University. She is also a previous OCA Super Champion for her book Half a Century Ago, which we were absolutely enamored with.

Well, it turns out that someone as fascinating as Arias doesn't run out of interesting and compelling stories to tell!

Stories of My Dad as He Lay Dying is a gripping, heartwarming memoir about the last months of Arias's father, Angel D. Arias, as he faces Alzheimer's disease, Stage 4 Multiple Myeloma, hospice care, physical decline, memory loss, pain, confusion, and the painful reality of a family slowly preparing to say goodbye.

That sounds incredibly sad, and it is. But this isn't the kind of book that leaves the reader trapped in sorrow. Somehow, Arias takes one of the most painful experiences a family can endure and fills it with warmth, personality, humor, faith, culture, memory, and love.

This book hurts, but it also comforts. It reminds us that a person is not defined only by their final illness. A father is not only the body in the bed, the diagnosis in the chart, or the pain his family is trying to manage. He is also every joke he ever told, every sacrifice he made, every song he sang, every story he repeated, every flower he brought home, every prayer he whispered, and every piece of love he left behind.

That really spoke to us. There was a time around COVID when it felt like everyone was passing away. And it sometimes felt like the world itself was crashing down, or like the sky was falling. We've all lost people. It's often said that the best thing a person can do after losing someone is to remember them, honor them, and live well.

And Arias and her father exemplify this throughout the book.

The book moves between the present-day hospice setting and memories from the past. In the hospice scenes, Daddy is physically fading, losing strength, losing his voice, and drifting in and out of lucidity. But the family keeps finding moments of humor: him wearing his doughnut cushion like a crown and announcing he is a king, complaining about medical devices, becoming “the Ninja” during combative Alzheimer’s episodes, and laughing along with the family even when he no longer fully understands the joke. Those moments are what give the book its heart.

A huge part of the memoir is also about family love as caregiving. Angela, Loli, Angel, Ody, Mami, Bob, nurses, clergy, and others all become part of the circle around Daddy. By the way, we found it so cool that Angela and her brother are referred to as "Los Angeles" because of their names.

Loli especially carries a heavy burden as one of the main decision-makers and caregivers. The book does a good job showing that hospice is not only about the patient’s suffering. It is also about the family reorganizing their entire lives around love, duty, exhaustion, prayer, and memory.

The strongest parts, to us, are the little object-based memories: the stolen photo album, the pink bracelet, the radio, the imaginary bicycle, the mysterious moccasin, the catheter complaint, the sweet potato confession, and May 20th. These objects become emotional triggers. They are small things, but they open huge doors into the father’s life: his marriage, his immigrant journey, his humor, his Dominican roots, his faith, his pride, and his fear of losing control. That is where the book feels most alive.

We also loved how culturally specific it is. This is not a generic memoir about a parent dying. It is deeply Dominican, Catholic, immigrant, Bronx, family-reunion, food-story, music-filled, prayer-filled, Spanish-and-English, joke-at-the-dinner-table specific. The chapters about politics, the Dominican Republic, migration, the 1965 unrest, and Daddy’s complicated view of leadership add real historical weight. They make him feel like a person shaped by country, faith, work, family, and displacement, not just by illness.

Later on, Daddy repeatedly says he will not leave until May 20th, the anniversary of his mother’s passing, and the family treats that date with a mix of humor, reverence, and preparation. When he dies, the book frames it less as defeat and more as a completed journey: he leaves surrounded by love, receives services in New York and Santo Domingo, and is buried in the homeland he never stopped loving. The letter to Papa afterward gives the book closure by showing that his legacy continues through children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, stories, and family values.

Gosh, it's hard not to shed a tear reading this. Like, most of the epilogue is like a love-letter memorizalizing and honoring Daddy. It's as hard-hitting and heartwrenching as you might expect, perhaps more so.

What we admire most is that the book refuses to let illness become Daddy’s whole identity. Alzheimer’s and cancer are present, but they do not get the final word. His humor does. His marriage does. His children do. His faith does. His stories do. That is the book’s real achievement.

Check it out on Amazon!