Gratitude: The Memory of the Heart
A French proverb declares that gratitude is the “memory of the heart.” It is with gratitude, the memory of my heart, that I remember Mom and Dad this holiday season. For many of us, it’s customarily the season we draw family close, spending time together, making new memories. Each family has their own unique traditions, which bind them together into their clan or tribe. As part of our heritage, these rituals are often passed down from generation to generation. This week, I’ve been daydreaming about my own birth family’s traditions, in an attempt to awaken new memories from my childhood. Both my parents are gone now, so memories are all…
An Unsung Hero…The Family Caregiver
In 2004, my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s-related dementia and a few months later, my mother with Alzheimer’s disease. That was the year I became a caregiver. While my parents didn’t reside with me, I was still intimately involved in their daily care for the next 4 and 5 years. Traveling down that rabbit hole of dementia with my parents was difficult and sad. I watched helplessly as this disease steadily and ruthlessly chipped away at their brains, one memory at a time. That said, it was also a time of considerable personal growth for me. I learned to parent my parents with patience and compassion, caring for them much…
AlzAuthors: Ending the Isolation of Alzheimer’s
When coping with Alzheimer’s disease, it’s easy to feel alone. The disease can be isolating. Not talked about as often as other ailments, there’s a stigma associated with losing memories, a certain shame. There shouldn’t be. It’s as uncontrollable as cancer, and yet there’s a shroud of silence that surrounds it. This silence leads to a denial of symptoms. Which may be why, according to a 2006 study by the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America (AFA), a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s is delayed an average of 27.8 months after symptoms appear. Healing comes from eliminating this silence. Talking enables us to cope, helping us realize that our challenges are not unique. Our…
Who are you? Where am I?
It was the weekend of our family reunion and almost everyone was gathered together at my parent’s condo to celebrate a milestone. Our patriarch, my dad, was turning 90. When the front doorbell rang, Mom opened the door, took one look at her oldest granddaughter and asked in a perplexed tone of voice, “Who are you?” After a moment of silence, we all laughed a little uncomfortably, but brushed it off, rationalizing the comment as a manifestation of Mom’s stress in caring for Dad, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. It was not mentioned again. Our family continued to somehow normalize or overlook the ever-increasing signs that something was…
Memory Chain
What does the “what-cheer, what-cheer” song of a northern Cardinal, an ultra light scooting across the sky, a fluffy dog-shaped cloud, and a Little Free Library have in common? Nothing, really, other than being some of the items I stored together in a “memory chain” in an ongoing quest to challenge my brain. While visiting my daughter at her new home in Michigan this summer, I was out walking around her neighborhood one evening. I felt grateful for the ability to walk briskly and at the same time, listen to or observe all the sights and sounds nearby. This isn’t something I take for granted, after watching both of my parents lose these…
Confront or Cover-up? Would YOU Tell?
It starts small. Misplaced keys that turn up in odd places, making you wonder if there are gremlins living in your house. Forgotten appointments you’re sure no one mentioned, until someone points to where you’d written it on your calendar. Other odd happenings disregarded, yet still niggling in the back of your mind. More time passes, and you begin to think someone has rewritten your familiar cookie recipe in an alien language, because as far as you’re concerned, the words have begun to lose their meaning. They have become a jumble of disconnected letters. You walk into the laundry room to wash a load or two, but have no idea…
Would I Recognize Myself?
Would I be cognizant enough to recognize the subtle changes in myself, were I to follow the path of my mother and her father, my grandfather? Should it come to pass, will my husband or my children recognize it in me first, wistfully acknowledging that in the end, my fate has linked itself to these two who went before? There are moments when these fleeting thoughts dart uninvited every which way in the recesses of my mind. I’ve no desire to linger on such thoughts, yet I can’t help but wonder if my family would be as clueless as I was when Mom ever so gradually began her descent into Alzheimer’s…
A Backwards Glance . . . Part Three
Sometimes toddlers have trouble following directions. We kind of expect this as normal for their developmental age. When this inability to follow directions consistently appears in an older person, however, it can be a red flag warning of potential cognitive impairment. My two college-aged children, both home on spring break, drove with me the two hours to my parent’s home for a visit. Mom anticipated our visit by having freshly baked cookies waiting for us when we arrived mid-morning. Upon entering their home, our noses were assailed by the smell of scorched cookies. Not only had she overcooked them, but they also had a noticeably strange appearance. She met us…
Part Two . . . A Backwards Glance
One spring weekend in May, our extended family gathered to honor my father’s 90th birthday. His 2 children and spouses, several of the grandchildren, nieces and his only living sibling from 2 states away, all came together for the weekend celebration. Saturday morning, we were gathered together in Dad and Mom’s condo, sharing stories and reminiscing. Dad was soaking up all the attention from the comfort of his favorite recliner. Neither of my parents was aware that their 2 granddaughters from the west coast were arriving as a birthday surprise. The plan was for each of them to arrive separately, to prolong the excitement. At the appointed time, the doorbell…
Part One: A backwards glance…
We’ve all heard that hindsight is 20/20. I’d have to agree, but in my case, that clarity might be closer to 20/15 or 20/10. Looking back, the clues were so glaringly obvious! At the time, though, the thought that my bright, energetic mother might be showing signs of dementia, never even passed across my radar screen. My parents received a hand-me-down computer from one of their granddaughters. It was their first experience with a computer and I must say, Mom, who was in her early eighties, learned the basics of computer use, including how to e-mail, without much trouble. Dad, nearing 90, was mostly interested in learning how to play…
Author | Adventurer | Advocate
