Paid Partner Content Presented by the Alzheimer’s Association
A
s a young girl in East
Cleveland, Ohio, actress
Yvette Nicole Brown dreamed
of a career in show business. Her father,
Omar, stoked her ambitions, taking
her to movies regularly and sharing his
stacks of R&B and soul records.
After nearly two decades of hard work
g row ing her career in Holly wood, Brown
landed her dream acting role in 2009
on NBC’s hit prime-time sitcom
“Community.” On-screen, Brown
portrayed Shirley Bennett, the show’s
sweet but often instigating “mother
hen.” Off -screen, however, Brown’s role
was much more serious: She became
a full-time caregiver for her father as
he developed Alzheimer’s.
‘A LITTLE BIT OF HIM
WAS SLIPPING AWAY’
Every Sunday since Brown moved to
Los Angeles, she and Omar would
catch up over the phone. She tried
convincing her father, who lived alone,
to move from Ohio to California, but
he always playfully objected. By 2011,
Brown realized that having her father
close was more than a nicety: It was
a necessity. “Every time I would call
him, it just seemed like a little bit of
him was slipping away,” she says.
Th e signs were all too familiar to
Brown — her paternal grandfather
had Alzheimer’s. “For the longest time,
[Alzheimer’s] was something horrible
that aff ected Granddad. No one else in
our family thought that it was coming
for them. Nobody,” Brown says.
But it soon became evident that her
dad would face the same fate. During
a trip to Cleveland to visit family,
Brown received a call from Omar, who
had gotten lost while he was driving
to meet her at a family member’s
house. He was disoriented,
“meandering on side streets,” even
though he had driven to the house
countless times before, Brown says.
“Th at’s when ... it hit me, because his
dad had it, and I was just like, ‘Oh
my God.’”
‘IT’S MY JOB TO
TAKE CARE OF HIM’
Slowly, the disease progressed. Soon
Brown felt there was no longer a
choice — she needed to step in as
her dad’s caregiver. “I hadn’t really
thought it through, just that I knew
I had to do it,” she says. Her father
relocated to Los Angeles in 2013.
Now, I am the
keeper of his
memories.
YVETTE
NICOLE
BROWN
HER CHALLENGING OFF-SCREEN ROLE
Photos by Robert Trachtenberg
10 • Special Issue|ALZ
