WCHM’s Darrell Everidge Shares a Story of Love, Loss, and the Long Goodbye

By: Nora Almazan

Each morning on WCHM’s The Mountain Morning Show, alongside Cole Cleiman, Darrell Everidge brings news, conversation, and a steady presence to listeners across Northeast Georgia. His voice is familiar. Grounded. Reliable. Best known for his love of music and his ever-increasing list of nicknames: Professor, The Man, Myth, and Legend, and Tater Tot, Darrell shares his wit, humor, and years of experience in the broadcasting world to those who have grown to love him. 

But behind that voice is a story far more personal than anything heard on the air. It is a story of love, loss, and showing up, day after day. It’s a story he’s chosen to share with the world.

Darrell Everidge’s first book, The Long Fade, officially releases on Amazon tomorrow, March 27th — and it is as raw, honest, and beautiful as anything you will read this year.

At the heart of the book is Darrell’s father, Bill Everidge.

Darrell's dad, Bill Everidge

“My dad was the kind of man who showed up—not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually,” Darrell shared. “He didn’t just guide me; he walked beside me.”

From studying for his FCC license together at the kitchen table to simply being present in the everyday moments, Bill Everidge built a life defined by steadiness and devotion.

“What I’ve always admired most is his belief in me,” Darrell said. “He taught me that love isn’t just a feeling — it’s a choice you make every single day.”

Those lessons stayed with Darrell and are now being tested in ways he never imagines. Darrell’s dad, Bill Everidge, suffers from dementia.

Darrell sadly knows that the man who once walked beside him is slowly fading. In that fading, Darrell has found himself in a role so many know, yet few talk about honestly — caregiver.

“I wrote this book because I had to,” he said. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

What began as late nights searching for answers — like so many caregivers do — turned into something deeper.

“I realized I wasn’t alone,” Darrell said. “There are millions of people walking through this. But so many of their stories aren’t being told.”

The Long Fade is his way of telling it - not just the medical reality of dementia, but the emotional one. The one that comes with guilt, frustration, exhaustion, and continued love. 

“Writing this book was an act of love and an act of reckoning,” he shared. “I had to face my own impatience, my own failures… and learn how to love someone when they can no longer remember who you are.”

In each word, the reader feels the heartbreak and the beauty within it. Moments where music brings his father back, if only briefly. Memories captured in old Super 8 films. Small, sacred moments that remind him who his father is — and always will be.

“In writing it, I was able to give my father back to himself, at least on the page,” Darrell said.

It’s impossible to hear his story without also feeling the presence of his mother, Frances — a woman his father loved deeply. They were married for 52 years.

“She loved that ugly silver aluminum Christmas tree,” Darrell said with a smile. “Dad thought it was an eyesore, but he put it up every year because she loved it.”

That kind of love leaves a mark. Frances passed away 18 years ago, and Darrell remembers watching something shift in his father that day.

“I saw the light go out behind his eyes,” he said quietly. “And looking back now, I wonder if the dementia didn’t start then.”

It’s those kinds of reflections — honest, vulnerable, deeply human — that make The Long Fade so powerful. This is not just a book about dementia. It is a book about love that endures even when memory does not.

Darrell hopes readers will see themselves in its pages.

“I hope people feel less alone,” he said. “I hope it helps them realize the time we have — right now — matters.”

That may be the greatest gift of this book. It reminds us to sit a little longer. To listen a little closer. To hold on to the ordinary moments that one day become everything.

Darrell Everidge has spent over four decades telling stories — through radio and award-winning photography, earning recognition from the Associated Press, the Georgia Press Association, and most recently, a 2024 Gabby Award for Newscasting.

But this story? This one may be his most important, because it doesn’t just inform. It connects.

It doesn’t just tell a story. It invites us to reflect on our own.

The Long Fade is more than a book. It is a reminder — that even in loss, even in fading, love remains.

And sometimes, showing up is the most powerful story we can tell.

The book releases tomorrow, March 27th, on Amazon.