Former Marianas journalist releases 'Would You Leave Your Parents Here?'
Fairfield, CA— Former Northern Mariana Islands and Guam journalist Aldwin Fajardo-Ponder has released his first book, "Would You Leave Your Parents Here? The Weight of the Keys," a collection of stories drawn from more than two decades working inside nursing homes in California.
The eBook is now available through BookBaby BookShop, with the hardcover edition to follow.
Long before Fajardo-Ponder became a nursing home administrator, he was writing stories in the Marianas.
He worked as a journalist for Marianas Variety in the Northern Mariana Islands and the Saipan Tribune, and later for Marianas Variety-Guam, before the newspaper became the Guam Daily Post. He was named Guam's Business Journalist of the Year in 2014 by the U.S. Small Business Administration.
His years in the islands formed an important part of a journalism career that would eventually take an unexpected turn into healthcare.
“I never planned to become a nursing home administrator,” Fajardo-Ponder said. “I was a journalist. I thought writing and newspapers would be my career. Healthcare was supposed to be a temporary detour. More than twenty years later, apparently the detour won.”
That journalism background remains evident in "Would You Leave Your Parents Here?" Rather than presenting a technical examination of long-term care, Fajardo-Ponder tells the stories of the people who live and work inside nursing homes: residents and their families, nurses, nursing assistants, therapists, housekeepers, administrators and the many others whose lives intersect behind institutional doors.
The stories range from funny and occasionally absurd moments of everyday nursing-home life to questions of aging, dignity, family, loss and responsibility.
At the center of the book is a deceptively simple question Fajardo-Ponder has asked employees throughout his years as an administrator: Would you leave your parents here?
The question eventually became personal.
While Fajardo-Ponder was completing the book, his 88-year-old father suffered a devastating accident in the Philippines. Suddenly, the administrator accustomed to helping other families navigate healthcare found himself confronting many of the same questions as a son.
“I had spent years asking whether I would trust a nursing home with someone I loved,” he said. “Then life decided I should answer the question myself.”
Although the book is about nursing homes, Fajardo-Ponder ultimately describes it as a book about people rather than institutions.
His path from island journalism to healthcare also finds its way into the book, including the unlikely series of circumstances that took him from newsrooms to medical records and eventually to the administrator's office.
Fajardo-Ponder now lives in Northern California and continues to work in skilled nursing administration. "Would You Leave Your Parents Here? The Weight of the Keys" is published by Alduart Press.
Subscribe to
our digital
monthly issue
