AlzAuthors is the global community of authors writing about Alzheimer’s and dementia from personal experience. I am fortunate to be one of the three founders of this nonprofit organization. This sale is an excellent opportunity to pick up new books about Alzheimer’s and dementia at discounted prices. Some are even free!

The books represent a variety of genres: non-fiction, fiction, memoir, children’s books, and more.

AlzAuthors Book Sale & Giveaway in Honor of Caregiver Appreciation Month Starts November 10th

They cover a wide range of situations: caring for a parent, a spouse, Alzheimer’s, early-onset dementia, and more.

All are available in a variety of formats, including digital, paperback, and audio.

Find them here: https://alzauthors.com/2021/11/09/book-sale-caregiver-appreciation-month/

Sale ends November 17th.

Thank you for your support of AlzAuthors.

A woman approached us as we walked along the sidewalk in the hospital corridor near my home.
“May I ask you a question?” she asked.

“Sure.”
“Is it okay if I approach your dog?”
“Of course.” She walked up to Jaxon and kneeled down to pet him.
“Oh, I so needed a mini Schnauzer ‘fix’ this morning. We don’t live here and our dog is back home. I miss her so.” She looked up at me. “My husband is in the Intensive Care Unit.”

“Oh, dear. Covid?” I asked.
“No, he had a heart attack. And, last night they had to take him back into surgery where he then suffered a second heart attack.”
“Oh, I am so sorry.” I put myself in her place, thinking of being in a city far from home with a husband in the ICU. Tears spontaneously streaked down my face. “I cry easily,” I apologized.

She nodded as if she understood. All the while, she is petting Jaxon, who acted perfectly content to soak up as many pets as possible. After standing up, she went on to say, “We have had four mini Schnauzers over the years. Our current dog is fifteen years old. It was hard to leave her behind with someone.”

“Jaxon is older too. He’s twelve.”

“They are such a playful breed, aren’t they? Up until the very end, always wanting to run and play,” she said.

“This is our first Schnauzer, but I’m not surprised. He generally has boundless energy.”

“All four of ours lived to around fourteen and a half to fifteen years. Two of them had dementia.”

“Really?”

“Yes, one of them would tilt sideways now and then. The other one ran in circles over and over and over, and became so thin we had to put her down. They were memorable pets.” She paused. “You have no idea how you and Jaxon have lifted my spirits this morning. I so needed this.”

I offered her a hug and she also began to cry. “Whenever someone hugs me, I cry. Hugs are such an unexpected kindness. My name is Kathleen, by the way.”
“I’m Vicki.”
We talked about mini Schnauzers a few minutes longer.
“Well, I best get on to the hospital. Thank you again for giving me this gift. It will sustain me as I face the day.”

We parted ways. What are the chances my dog and I would be walking down that particular sidewalk at the same moment Kathleen intersected our path from the parking lot?

Her words about kindness caught me off guard. For me, hugging her seemed the natural response. I thought about it and realized we all left with a gift. My dog enjoyed the unexpected petting which, in turn, offered this stranger comfort and her perception of kindness allowed me to enjoy a warm and satisfied feeling in my heart. Serendipity at its finest. What better way to start the day?

Kindness. It is always the right choice.

I’m excited to announce that  Somebody Stole My Iron: A Family Memoir of Dementia was selected for BookAuthority’s Best Alzheimer’s Books of All Time.

BookAuthority collects and ranks the best books in the world, and it is a great honor to get this kind of recognition. Thank you, dear readers, for all your support!

Opportunity: a favorable, appropriate, or advantageous combination of circumstances; a chance or prospect

What would life be like without opportunity? I find the thought rather bleak. Opportunity can be sought after, but it can also seek us. Opportunity sought me when I became the family caregiver for both my parents, who had dementia.

How often do we look at a person with dementia and see…well, see a demented person? As yet, there’s no way to slow or stop the progression of this devastating disease, so how could we possibly reframe it as an opportunity in, and of, itself?  Can we not only learn to accept the person’s disability, but embrace this disability and see it as an opportunity?  An opportunity, you say? How on earth could it be an opportunity?

Throughout my life, Mom and I’d often been at odds with each other, and for most of her decline into dementia, the disease did not improve our relationship. Toward the end, however, the opportunity to heal old wounds arrived and I came to know acceptance. I learned to meet her where she stood on her dementia journey. This led to another opportunity to embrace Mom, and release my negative emotional bag filled with pain, anger, frustration, irritation, and dismay.  Our divisions repaired themselves and I discovered only tenderness. Transgressions, real or imagined, dissolved as I found the opportunity to build bridges, constructed simply of love. I had encountered real life. My one, true mother neared the end of her earthly stay, and I received the gift of release, an opportunity to let go, finding closure in a beautiful experience that transcended time and space. Ten years later, I still feel enveloped in my mother’s love. Thank goodness for opportunities.

Mom’s shoes had developed a pervasive stench. There was no other way to describe it. In hindsight, I realize it may have been related to the fact that she continuously wore the same pair of leg-support knee-highs. I was somehow deluded into thinking she washed them occasionally. Now I realize she probably did not. I could have been more proactive about washing them myself, but she always wore them, and did not want an additional pair as she felt the cost was too expensive. It would have been an excellent idea if I had bought her a second pair anyway, and helped her change them each week, and then washed the pair she had been wearing. Why, oh why, didn’t I think of that? It now seems like a no-brainer. Perhaps I was still maneuvering through various and changing forms of denial. In any case, the next best thing was a bottle of foot odor remover. I showed her how to sprinkle some of the white powder in her shoes each morning. This really helped with the odor.

One day, several weeks later, I visited her and noticed the yellow plastic bottle of Comet Cleanser I had brought to clean her sink and toilet sitting on her nightstand in her bedroom. I found this a little odd, so I asked her, “Mom, why is the Comet Cleanser on your bedroom nightstand shelf?”

She replied, “Well, I am sprinkling it in my shoes every morning, just like you told me to!”

She tried so hard to follow directions. My heart went out to her for trying. Well, at least her shoes were very clean inside, and the bottoms of her feet sparkling! I replaced the appropriate bottle of foot odor remover by her bedside, and brought the Comet Cleanser home with me. I am reminded of her every time I clean our toilets!

My mother did not take kindly to what she considered “interference” with her housekeeping. Because she had always been such an immaculate housekeeper, walking into her apartment and seeing her bathroom sink caked with grime and an ever-growing brown ring around the toilet bowl was one more reminder that her brain function was deteriorating. Whenever I thought I could carefully, yet unobtrusively, clean the sink or toilet without her noticing I seized the opportunity. However, I sensed that change loomed on the horizon.

Lessons Learned

Have more awareness than I did, and buy an extra pair of support hose! Wash the extra pair in the sink whenever you visit.

Assisted living facilities typically have a cleaning service, but Mom refused to let them come into her apartment.  Should this be the case for you, and hygiene/sanitary living conditions become an issue, consider arriving while the loved one is otherwise occupied (on a bus ride or in the dining room eating, for example), clean the grime off the sink and toilet, and change the towels and sheets while he or she is away. It is unlikely to even be noticed, but you will have the peace of mind knowing the living space is clean. Bring cleaning supplies with you when you visit and remove them when you leave.

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As time passed, an idea quietly germinated in my subconscious, leading to a growing awareness that my experience might be helpful to others walking the same road. With that realization, my diary morphed into a manuscript and I began to consider pursuing publication. With a bit of wariness, I shared the manuscript with a few close friends, who offered positive feedback and encouragement. Then something unexpected happened. I developed a severe case of reticence. How could I expose our family to the public’s scrutiny, unveiling all the foibles and missteps? How could I expose the frightful truth about Mom’s precipitous decline? Even worse, if I moved forward with publication, I risked alienating my only sibling and perhaps his family, in my honesty about his lack of involvement and emotional support. When my best friend from childhood intimated that I would be “dishonoring” my parents if I were audacious enough to seek publication, her comment completely knocked the wind out of my sails. That did it. I chastised myself for even considering unmasking our family in such a callous way. The story was simply too private and I certainly did not want to dishonor my parents’ memory in any way, shape or form.

The manuscript languished on my computer hard drive for nearly 3 years. A tiny inner voice, however, refused to leave me alone. Now and then, it spoke to me, in various iterations: This narrative might be able to offer hope to others! Or: You know you learned a lot of lessons along the way that might help others from making the same mistakes. Why won’t you share them? Or: This story has so many ideas for coping, plus you could add information from experts to make it even more useful. Or: What if you lightened another’s load, letting them know that they’re not alone on a difficult road?

Eventually, I could no longer deny that voice, so I listened. I moved forward with editing, found a publisher and shared my story. Nine long years after I began my diary to cope, my diary of hope, Somebody Stole My Iron: A Family Memoir of Dementia was born.

Let’s not keep secrets any longer. Join us during June, Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month. Speak out.

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I remember being admonished as a child for acting “too inquisitive” or alternately, “too sensitive.” As an adult I’m sometimes told that, in conversations, I either give too many details or ask for too many details, depending on whether I’m telling the story or listening to one. Or worse, I confess to interrupting someone else’s story (my husband) to add more details when I don’t feel he’s imparting enough information. Okay, so I like details! Watching movies, it’s not uncommon for me to be so engrossed in the details of the room decor or the characters’ clothing in period piece dramas, that I forget to listen to the dialog. My husband might call a movie a “yawner,” while I found it completely captivating in its minutia. And yes, I can be a bit on the obsessive side when it comes to journaling, particularly when traveling. I’m driven to record the details of our travel days, which actually sometimes comes in handy when we’re trying to remember the name of a particular place or where we stayed in any given city. While other people seek entertainment on their iPad, I’m busily recording the day’s events.

I’ve long collected family memorabilia, particularly photographs. Some of these photos date back to the mid-1800s. I thoroughly enjoy studying the details in these old photos, imagining myself in that time period. My current work in progress is a fictional biography of my great-grandmother Maggie. For inspiration, I’ve immersed myself in this branch of our family’s photographs, studying every element of each photo. There’s a particular photo of the farmhouse in Michigan where Maggie grew up, with 2 men and a horse standing near the house. If only photos might speak. The best I can do is squeeze my eyes shut, wishing I might transport myself into the picture by force of will, if only to ask questions and learn more about my family that came before. Throughout my life, I’ve had an active imagination, described by some as “over active.”

It’s easy for me to empathize, and over the years, I’ve often joked I could hire out as a “crier” at funerals and weddings. Labeled “overly sensitive,” I remember my mom telling me to “toughen up” when I cried over events or situations she deemed unworthy of tears. I believe she hoped to make me “strong” and strong women do not cry. How did I acquire all these seemingly “negative” traits?

Not everyone enjoys the details as much as I do, and most people aren’t as “overly sensitive” nor are they identified by their “overactive” imagination. And, we all know what happened to the cat that was too curious. We are who we are and diversity makes the world go ‘round. Still, I experienced a truly “aha” moment recently, reading a blog about the way writers think. With genuine surprise, I realized this author had not only described me to a “T,” but that there are other people who also love detail as much as I do, and are both inquisitive and sensitive. They are called “writers.” And, as a bonus, none of these labels are considered negative. At long last, I believe I may have found my tribe.

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I opened the pedestrian door from our garage onto our patio to sounds of frantic fluttering and flapping, coming from our next-door neighbor’s yard. My first thought was “Oh, no, an injured bird.” As I walked closer to the fence dividing our yards, that’s indeed what it appeared. I saw a robin hopping about and frantically flapping his wings. However, when I looked more closely, I realized that wasn’t it at all. The robin was “imprisoned” inside a loop of chicken wire mesh.

In an attempt to keep his dog away from a section of our shared fence, my neighbor had installed a few feet of chicken wire. The wire had detached from one end and was partially curled over, forming an empty cylinder. Somehow the robin had skittered into this unintentional birdcage, and was now trying his utmost to batter the chicken wire into releasing him to freedom. It was easy to see the effort was causing the bird a great deal of stress and would ultimately exhaust him.

If only we could only redirect the bird to reverse direction and look behind him toward our shared fence, he’d see there was a wide opening in the chicken wire where he could easily hop out and escape his self-made prison. My husband retrieved a broom from the garageand, using the handle, gently attempted to coax the bird to turn around and move toward the fence. This only served to further agitate the bird, as the more my husband prodded, the more the robin flapped his wings and thrust himself forward into the wire. From the bird’s perspective, forward was the only way out. From our perspective, we could clearly see that the true way out was in the opposite direction.

Like the robin, how often are we convinced that the direction we’re going is the only path? Even if someone else comes along and implies our goal may lie in an alternate direction, it’s often difficult to shift gears and turn the other way, certain doing so would only result in a setback. After all, we can “see” our goal directly in front of us. If only there wasn’t that “roadblock” in the way! So, we batter and beat at our barrier, ending up exhausted and frustrated by our lack of progress. Why is it often so difficult to switch directions and approach our goal from a different and often unexpected pathway? Have you ever experienced one of these so-called setbacks redirecting you in a different way, which actually turned out to be a better direction?

Back to the bird…Eventually, we were successful in redirecting the robin to the other side of his self-made cage, where he easily and without fanfare hopped to freedom and flew away…directly opposite of where he’d been throwing himself against the wire.

Makes you stop and think, doesn’t it?

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Although Mom passed away 8 years ago from complications of Alzheimer’s disease, a belated appreciation of her has slowly blossomed, especially in the past couple of years. At random moments, I’ve experienced an unmistakable yearning to hug her tenderly and voice my gratitude one more time. In earlier years, I sometimes seemed to lack the ability to show my appreciation in a way that she could relate.

She was born in a time of little. As a child, farm work was the only extra-curricular activity she experienced outside of school. On the other hand, while I was growing up as the only child still at home, it was quite the opposite. Mom did everything in her power to offer me as many experiences and opportunities as possible in our small town. At various times during childhood, not only was I involved with Scouts and 4-H, but Scottish and Hawaiian dance lessons, as well as music lessons, including piano, clarinet, voice, and organ. I’m quite sure I didn’t appreciate the opportunities presented as well as I might have. In fact, it’s probable I took them for granted. Not only that, but I was terrible at practicing my dance and music lessons.

As a teen, we were often at loggerheads, as I struggled to grow up and establish my own sense of self in an ever-changing world. Sometimes, in frustration, she’d shout, “No one appreciates all that I do.” I did my teen-age best to appreciate her, but I have a hunch my actions may have fallen short. The years passed, I married and had a family of my own.

Mom was always there for my family and me. If Mom could say, “yes” to a request, she did, even when “yes” meant taking care of my 3 children for 2 weeks when my husband and I had an opportunity to travel to Europe for my husband’s business. It couldn’t have been easy to step into the role of “Mom” for 3 children when you’re in your 70’s and not at all used to the hustle and bustle of a busy family. Now that I’m a grandmother myself, I can see this more clearly.

While I told her many times over the years, “I appreciate you and all that you do,” I’m not sure my words touched her to the degree that I’d hoped. I’m not even sure I fully grasped the depth and true meaning of that word “appreciation.” Then there were my misguided attempts to demonstrate appreciation, which fell flat or actually irritated her. Attempts that she had trouble accepting. After that trip abroad, along with my verbal and written thanks, I sent her flowers in appreciation. She chastised me for “wasting” money on something that would “just die.” We were residing on different planets. I was genuinely grateful and I believed flowers were a socially acceptable way of saying thank you. At the time, I scratched my head in consternation, but I now recognize that for someone who grew up during the depression, the gesture may have appeared frivolous.

Could I find the right words today, if I were given another chance to voice the depth of my gratitude for her sacrifices and unconditional love? Is it possible I now have a richer and deeper understanding of that word “appreciation?” Would she nod at me, sensing I’d at last developed a knowingness that was lacking in my younger self? Seems I had to travel further along life’s journey for that understanding, that wisdom, which evolves from living. It may simply be quite difficult or perhaps impossible to appreciate fully from the front end of life.

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It was late afternoon when my doorbell rang. I peeked carefully out the window and there stood a clean-cut young man. I thought, “Uh oh, a magazine salesman,” but something moved me to open the front door anyway.

“Hi, My name is Mikhail.” He turned slightly to point behind him at the sidewalk steps leading up onto the walkway to our front porch. “I’ve long admired those steps and I’m wondering if it would be all right to stand on them next Saturday when I propose to my girlfriend?”

“Whaat?” That wasn’t what I’d expected him to say. Far from it! “You want to propose on the steps leading up to our walkway?” Was I hearing correctly? This was a first!

“Yes, ma’am. I’m wondering if I might propose on your steps.” He patiently repeated his request. Our unusually wide steps do have a rather unique finish, stencil-painted to resemble red brick.

The conversation continued, the details worked through and the agreement confirmed. While a photographer would be hiding beneath the drooping branches of a nearby over-sized pine tree, he’d walk by our house around dusk with his girlfriend, stop on our steps and pop the question.

Near twilight on the following Saturday, I confess that my husband and I discreetly observed the two of them standing at the top of the steps beside our lamppost. From our vantage point in the dining room, we watched as he bent down on one knee. Based on her reaction, it was clear her response was affirmative. We never learned her name and haven’t seen them again. However, the scene lingers in my mind.

I looked at those steps and saw…steps. This young man looked at my steps creatively, with imagination.

Imagination has accompanied man’s journey throughout time and when imagination meets science, innovation is kindled. Inventions occur. Discoveries are made. Cures are found. I sincerely believe that when the key that unlocks the door to a cure for dementia is uncovered, it will involve not only science, but also imagination. I imagine the dementia riddle will be solved by someone who thinks outside the box…someone who visualizes potential solutions in a different way, using cultivated ingenuity and creative thought. The world of imagination is truly unlimited. Imagine a world without dementia. Imagine…

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1. Viereck, George Sylvester (October 26, 1929). “What life means to Einstein: an interview”. The Saturday Evening Post.

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