Finding Hazel: A Memoir of Friendship and Freedom, Love and Loss

What happens when dementia confronts a loving couple who have led a compelling life together in the UK and USA? Will their love reach breaking point? And how did they come to fall in love in the first place?

Growing up in post-War Britain, Chris is sent to a harsh boarding school, then gradually finds his way through travel and friendship. As a young man working in London, he meets a dazzling American woman, Hazel, whose warmth, independence and humor captivate him. A close and loving partnership grows between them, and together they help friends in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia to escape to the West with their two young sons.

After living busy lives in the UK, Chris and Hazel move to New England, USA, to be nearer Hazel's family. It is at first idyllic there. Then, after a sister's death, Hazel begins to show early signs of dementia. As her personality shifts and her physical independence fades, Chris faces the hardest challenge of his life - how best to care for Hazel as her behavior becomes erratic and her understanding diminishes. They are each stretched to their limits as they try to navigate the narrowing world that dementia creates. Their difficulties grow further as the Covid pandemic spreads.

When Hazel's suffering ends, Chris has deep feelings of loss. Hiking in the chilly spring hills of Vermont, he starts to remember the bright days before Hazel's illness - memories of Hazel's abilities, laughter and courage. Chris' grief slowly transforms into a sense of gratitude.

'Finding Hazel' is a true story of devotion and freedom, of how love lingers in memory, and of what it may mean to begin again after profound loss.

Chris Stoddart was born in London UK and spent most of his working life in television and media companies, principally in ITV. He married Hazel Grasmere, an American, in London in 1985. They moved to the USA in 2009, and Chris became a US citizen in 2012. During the last five years of Hazel's life, through the pandemic, Chris cared for Hazel at home after she was diagnosed with vascular dementia/Alzheimers. She died in 2022. Chris now lives in California.