Tag: Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer's

Laughter, Strength, and Dignity

Sally2 Comments

I really needed a Bible verse the other day when I was feeling very frazzled.  One of the verses that came to mind was this:

Proverbs 31:25

She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.

So when I read the “Talk Back” question on Women of Faith’s site, asking, “If they made a movie of your life, would it be a comedy, tragedy or drama?”  I immediately thought of this verse.  This chapter of my life is definitely a comedy.  It’s a tragic comedy, but, still, overwhelmingly, it’s a comedy.  Really!  If I couldn’t laugh at some of the ridiculous situations involved with someone with Alzheimer’s, I would end up crying.  Constantly.

And when I cry, because I have a fair complexion, my skin gets very red and splotchy, and I look horrible.  Most of the time, I don’t care a whole lot about how I look.  I rarely wear make-up.  My hair is what it is.  My clothes are t-shirts or sweatshirts and blue jeans.  But I really don’t want people to see me when I’ve been crying.  So I try very hard to laugh at the days to come.

What funny thing will happen today?  Already, my mother has put her cereal in her coffee and commented on the ridiculous prices in the sales flyer from Boscov’s.

“$6.99 for neckties!  That’s ridiculous!” she said.

“How much would you pay for a necktie, Mom?” I asked.  I’m never quite sure what decade or even century she is in at the moment, and I look for clues so that I can figure it out.

“I wouldn’t pay more than $3 or $4 for a necktie,” she answered.

What decade is that? I wondered.

She continued.  “I wouldn’t go into one of those high class joints.  Other ones look just fine.”

My mother always has liked a bargain.  Some things never change.

The other half of the “Talk Back” question was “Who would you want to play you?”  Most definitely Lucille Ball.  I want someone who can stomp grapes and stuff candy in their mouth and wail.  I feel like wailing and bawling Lucille Ball style quite often;  I just show a little more restraint.

But wait — the other half of the verse says I must be clothed with strength and dignity.  Life with my mother can be anything but dignified.  She has forgotten basic proprieties in so many areas of her life — eating, bathing, dressing herself.  I need to remind myself that I am the one who must be clothed with strength and dignity.  It’s only when I am properly attired in these that I can help her.  On frazzled days, when I miss my quiet time, I really see the truth in this.  Strength and dignity are not things I have mastered, but, for the sake of the movie, let’s pretend I have.

Hmmm… an actress who represents strength and dignity.  Audrey Hepburn immediately comes to my mind.  I love her in Roman Holiday.  She is beautiful, strong and dignified — except, of course, when she is smashing a guitar over somebody’s head.  If you haven’t seen the movie, find it, watch it, and you’ll understand.

I’m sure with all our computer technology these days, someone can take Lucille Ball and morph her with Audrey Hepburn.  You’d have it!  The Proverbs 31:25 woman and the person I would like to play me in the movie of my life.

Alzheimer's

“They were young once. They fell in love…”

Sally7 Comments

A number of years ago, I was able to accompany my father on his trip to his hometown.  He was meeting with his siblings and their spouses to inter my grandparents’ remains.  My mother was planning to go with him, but got sick just before they were supposed to leave.  I filled in for her.

I had no idea what a special trip that would turn out to be.  We went to the cemetery and sat on a little knoll while my father and his brother and sister reminisced about their parents.  They each shared memories of how their parents had made their house a home.  They talked about my grandmother making elaborate Halloween costumes for them, her competitive side coming out, so that they could win the town’s contest.  They talked about their cousins and their pets and their school and their growing up years.  Then my uncle said something which I will never forget.

He said, “They were young once.  They fell in love.  They had dreams and passions just like we do.”

I don’t know why that was so profound, but it hit me squarely in the heart.

My grandparents were old the whole time I knew them.  My grandmother had Alzheimer’s.  She smoked and drank martinis.  I have seen her wedding picture and she was once beautiful.

My grandfather had Guillain-Barre syndrome in the late 70’s or early 80’s, I think. (Perhaps one of my siblings has a better memory for these details.)  It transformed him from the robust, fun Grampa that I loved to go see, to a weak man confined to a wheelchair.  I have wonderful earlier memories of him throwing the Hollywood brick (it was made of foam) at us, and tricking us every time with it.  In fact, I think we all (the grandchildren) wanted that brick when they were emptying out the apartment, but no one seems to know where it went.

Unfortunately, my mind doesn’t always go back to good memories.  Why these memories?  My grandfather weeping in a wheelchair when I came to visit when I was pregnant with Philip.  My grandmother smoking and sniping.

“They were young once.  They fell in love…”  I chose, then and there, to replace my memories with happier ones.

Yesterday, I caught a little glimpse of that with my mother.  We were sitting at the table, with a full plate of marmalade sandwiches.  She had made ten or so before I got there — for the others.  She looked up at a window ledge, and asked my father, “What’s in that vase?”

Now, you need to know that my mother has always a way with plants.  Her home was filled with them.  She had the most beautiful Christmas cactus I have ever seen.  She would take little pieces of the Christmas cactus, stick them in a cup of water, wait for them to send out little roots and then move them to pots.  She started so many plants that way.  And the house is still littered with pieces of Christmas cactus stuck in water.  That’s what was in the vase.

My father looked up at the milk-glass vase with the sad little piece of Christmas cactus drooping over the edge. “Well, that’s a genie in a bottle,” he said.  “If you rub it, he’ll come out and grant your wish.”

My mother giggled like a schoolgirl.  She looked at him and smiled.

When he left the room, she said, “I’m so lucky I found him.”

Oh, Mom, you have no idea.

“They were young once.  They fell in love…”  She was back to that point in her life.  I want to remember her that way.

********************************************

This picture is from Christmas 1981.  I chose it because it’s one of the few pictures I have of my grandparents.  That’s them in the front row.  I love the fact that my grandmother reached over and put her hand on my grandfather.  They were in love still.

Alzheimer's

The Twilight Zone

Sally4 Comments

(This was originally published on Facebook on July 9, 2010)

I think Rod Serling, the creator of The Twilight Zone, must have had some experience with a person suffering from Alzheimer’s. Some days, here in Cooperstown, that’s all I can think about – The Twilight Zone.

My mother is trapped in a very strange episode of The Twilight Zone. She is time-travelling from decade to decade, and it’s difficult to figure out where she is. She thinks she is 25 years old, but her face in the mirror tells another story. It must be frightening. She thinks she has a date to go to a dance, but her date never shows up. An old man claiming to be her husband does.

When she wakes the next day, she’s in a new place. Her husband is at work (he’s been retired for 11 years, but is at a meeting). The red barn across the street looks just like the barn that was across the street from their house (it is the red barn that is across the street from their house). “Whose car is that in that in the driveway? I need to borrow it,” she says, but it’s my car and I won’t let her.

Two days ago she was very worried about me. I was 6 years old and lost. I’m here with her; I’m not lost; I’m 50. Something doesn’t make sense, but she can’t figure out what it is. We move on.

The only constant in this Twilight Zone episode is orange marmalade. Orange marmalade is served at every meal – on hot dogs, on sandwiches, you name it. Orange marmalade – I really can’t figure it out. But I think I understand now what they’re talking about on the Food Channel when they refer to comfort foods. They’re talking about orange marmalade.

I think it has always been one of my fears that I will be trapped in The Twilight Zone. It was always such a scary show to me, because there would be that twist at the end – like M. Night Shyamalan had in The Sixth Sense. Reality isn’t what we’ve been led to believe that it is. For my mother, the twist doesn’t come at the end; it comes so often that it is dizzying. Another twist and another twist.

I want to cry.

I’ll have some orange marmalade instead.