The Gift of Alzheimer's

Mom looked great as she awoke the following morning surrounded by young doctors and nurses doting on her. I smiled as I saw her laughing and joking with all of the hospital staff. Mom had a beautiful, thick head of hair that people commented on everywhere we went. She was at one time Miss Yoakum, Tx 1st runner up and carried this style and beauty and grace with her into her now later seventies despite her affinity for modest frocks and only a wedding ring for jewelry. She looked beautiful and sweet, and had dramatically changed overnight from the swollen face and lips I saw yesterday. But as I walked with her arm in arm down the hall to the bathroom, I saw a helplessness in her, and I knew in my gut that our lives were going to change dramatically.

As we drove to my house, I explained to Mom that she was going to be staying with me for a while. She offered no resistance at all, and I reassured her she would not be alone anymore. She seemed so content to be taken care of as we went through the motions of getting some clothes from her house and picking up some medicine she would need. No resistance at all from a woman who had always taken care of everyone but herself.

I took several days off work to spend with Mom, and I slowly began to feel a growing sense of panic. My mom was living with me! I felt sad and happy to help at the same time – a confusing mix of extreme love and fear all bundled up together in one tremendous emotional package. I had grown accustomed to living on my own after my husband had been killed in a car wreck some ten years earlier. I cherished living alone, and valued my freedom to come and go as I pleased between work, playing music and traveling to see Rich in Arizona. I always knew somehow I would be there for mom. She would never speak of transitioning out of her home, but because of my relationship with her, my being single and the fact that I lived only blocks away, I would be a logical first step if she ever needed help.

My brother James and his wife, Kim, who was homeschooling their children, immediately began helping me by letting me drop off Mom at their home while I went to work at the salon. I cut my hours so I could pick her up by 6 p.m. and bring her home with me. I had been a hairdresser since the age of 19 and my clients were understanding as I explained the necessity of needing time for my mom. We usually had some simple meal together, soup or a grilled cheese sandwich, or takeout Chinese as a treat. It didn't matter what I made us for dinner, Mom was always more than grateful. She would say it was better than any steak dinner and ooh and ahh that it was the best she'd ever had. Mom had simple tastes as she grew up vegetarian mostly for economic reasons. She told us that my father bought her the first steak she ever had at age 23. She spoke of loving every moment of eating sardines and crackers with him for dinner when they were first married and struggling financially. We would sit together watching “The Andy Griffith Show” or “The Waltons” or “Little House on the Prairie.” She laughed and laughed at Andy Griffith especially, and he became a good babysitter for me, giving me time to clean the kitchen or take a bath.