1.
My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease _8
2.
The purpose of my mother's lifelong wish to travel to Aitutaki Island is happiness _27
3.
My mother wanted to be an intelligent woman until the end _35
4.
The deep wounds of my mother's painful past _49
5.
"Welcome to Aitutaki" Mom shed tears the moment she saw the sign. _64
6.
The man who showed my mother a whole new way to love _71
7.
My mother often asked me what a good death is. _88
8.
Our Family's Sorrows, War, and Sex _103
9.
So many small and big deaths _119
10.
The fantasy of fish on a tree waving to their mother _138
11.
There's a bottle in Mom's head, an apple, that won't let her keep thinking _152
12.
The Incomprehensible Blueprint of Heaven _171
13.
Feeling Alive _188
14.
How to Know the Sound That Rings in Heaven _201
15.
A Dead Mother Has No Son _217
16.
Every sentence becomes a song _230

A trip with my mother who has Alzheimer's disease, a disease of forgetfulness.

In contrast to the beautiful and peaceful island scenery, the conversation between the son and mother is extremely honest and therefore very heavy.
The son keeps the memories and stories left by his mother in order by repeating the same conversation with her every day.
The feelings of a mother who is worried about her future and even contemplates suicide, and of a young son who can only look on with pity and helplessness at his mother, are conveyed heavily throughout the book.

He admired his mother, who was born in the countryside and came to the city to become a journalist and writer, and who forged her own life with a strong will. However, seeing that will and energy crumble helplessly in the face of Alzheimer's disease, the son is also immersed in fundamental concerns about life and death.
The weight of death is felt in the face of the mother's realization that the sentences that beautifully described old age and death were nothing more than a trick.

This story would have been received much differently in Germany, as her mother, Claudia Schreiber, was a famous writer there.
In Korea, as that cultural context is removed, the focus is more on the son's perspective, and it is heartbreaking for a son to witness his mother's decline at a young age.
What is impressive is the way he accepts and responds to the cold reality as it is rather than hastily embellishing it.