I never had the intention of making this movie. It happened by accident.

You see, my mom’s boyfriend seemed oblivious to the fact that my mother had Alzheimer’s. This was after the diagnosis, after the anecdotal evidence, after the 23andme.com test that showed she had an elevated risk for Late-Onset Alzheimer’s.

So on the one hand, this was of great benefit to their relationship, as he continued to treat her normally.

On the other hand, it meant that we couldn’t rely on him to be a team player. This meant that he wouldn’t help with caregiving duties, including seeing to it that the Bredesen Protocol was followed while in his care. 

So, I came up with an idea. What if I made a film about our normal, everyday lives – instead of the scripted ones she spent with her boyfriend, where my mother would always put her best foot forward and work really hard to cover up her impairments. By the way, she didn’t just act this way with her boyfriend; she’d do this with her friends as well.

I thought that the movie would show us candidly, and in seeing her forgetfulness in the raw, a lightbulb might go on for him where he could see her as she really was – the victim of a monstrous disease. This would require him to be grounded, rational, accepting, and not to mention sound-minded himself.

9 months in the making, Saving Livia was released February 2021. Bruce died in early April 2021 and never got to see the film. 

I don’t know how we would have responded to the film, but I’m extremely grateful that he opened me up to the idea of video. It was because of Bruce that I took so many great little videos of my mom – and some are REALLY silly and make me laugh!!  To have these when I don’t have my mother…words can’t describe my gratitude.

I’ll look for creative ways to publish the footage that I have so that I can share more of my mother with you. Most are poorly shot and perhaps even boring, but I do think they capture the essence of Livia, and after all, isn’t that why we’re all here.