Suzy McNamara | When Grief Begins Before Goodbye, Caring for a Spouse With Early-Onset Alzheimer’s

Female Voices: Life and Loss · Sep 3, 2026 · 45m

Sometimes grief begins long before someone dies. It begins when the person you love is still beside you, but the life you knew together is already changing.

In this episode, Teresa Reiniger sits down with Suzy McNamara for an honest conversation about caregiving, anticipatory grief, identity, faith, and carrying more than one devastating loss at once.

Suzy spent five years as the primary in-home caregiver for her husband, Bob, after he was diagnosed with posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s. She shares what it was like watching changes begin in his early 50s…