I Finally Have the Smoking Hot Body I Have Always Wanted is a wildly honest, heartbreakingly funny, and beautiful tribute to your late mother, sharing with readers your mother’s bold personality and her passion for life. Why was this an important book for you to write?

Because watching someone you love disappear in slow motion – while sitting across the table from you, eating toast – is surreal, maddening, and in many strange moments, hilarious. Writing this book was how I made sense of it.

It gave structure to the chaos of Alzheimer’s and honoured the woman my mom was before, during, and even after her death.

She was vibrant, feisty, and deeply funny ( sometimes unintentionally), and I wanted readers to get to know Mom and realize just what an incredible woman was taken from us and from the world.

I wanted readers to know that Alzheimer’s erased pieces of her slowly over time, but not entirely…some of those pieces were just rearranged.

I wrote to remember, to grieve, to laugh, to educate, and to honour every single person affected by Alzheimer’s – and hopefully, in the process, help someone else feel a little less alone in their own upside-down world.

I appreciated the candid nature with which you told your family’s story. What was the hardest thing for you to write about?

It wasn’t the big dramatic moments that were hard to write- it was the quiet ordinary ones that were the most difficult to write about …they knocked the wind out of me.

The moments when I saw her doubt herself. When she looked at us with her eyes searching, trying to remember or to find the right words… hoping we’d fill in the blanks.

Writing about her confusion, her fear, reading her hospital records, and the way her confidence evaporated-that gutted me.

And maybe the hardest part? Owning up to my guilt about not having spent as much time with her as I might have, and that I wasn’t her primary caregiver. My dad and my sister were. They were in the trenches daily. I have endless respect for all the full-time caregivers who show up day after day, holding it all together.

During the brief reprieve I gave here and there, I felt heartbreak, more guilt, and helplessness.

Admitting it and writing that on paper made it real, and once published, I couldn’t take it back.

What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?

Heartbreak and humour can—and often do —co-exist. That grief can be sneaky and slow and yet, darkly funny. That caregiving in all its forms…matters.

A reminder to always use the “people first” approach. There’s real dignity in that. Being remembered for the WHOLE person they were and not just the Alzheimer’s patient they became.

I also wanted to challenge the notion that writing about illness has to be sterile or solemn. Life is not tidy. Relationships are messy, and family dynamics aren’t perfect.

So, I wrote something messy, funny, painful, and true…because that’s what the journey was…

What do you hope is one thing readers take away from your mom’s story?

I hope readers walk away thinking about their people-the ones who shaped them, annoyed them, challenged them (maybe drove them a little crazy), and loved them anyway.

I want them to feel compelled to tell their stories…even if there’s guilt, cracks, or unresolved issues. Especially if there is. There is healing in the process.

AND I hope readers realize that humour doesn’t minimize the pain – it makes space for survival.

Above all, I hope they fall a little in love with my Mom …because she really was pretty cool.

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