Sometimes I’ll be walking down a hallway or sitting in a meeting or listening to music in my car when it hits me. Sometimes I’ll be having dinner with my husband and daughter and I’ll put the fork down and close my eyes, paralyzed for a moment and waiting for it to pass. Other times, I’ll be picking out clothes for the day or running soap over a wash cloth, and out of nowhere, it rushes up on me and drops an invisible hood over my face, stopping my breath and blinding me.
Grief.
Grief that smothers, grief that crushes my chest, grief that makes me dizzy.
I’ll be in the middle of a sentence during a conversation, and my voice will start to shake. I break eye contact and keep speaking, and then the tears come and I put my head down on the desk or the table and wave away whomever I’ve been speaking to.
My father is healing from his last surgery and making slow but steady progress toward eventually moving back home. Wherever that turns out to be. But my mother is now failing, succumbing to the cruelty of Alzheimer’s disease. My grief is not for a death, but for a theft. Our parents are slowly being taken from us, one memory, one indignity at a time.
Yesterday, I lost it. I cried as I attempted to describe to my husband the feeling of knowing you are losing your mother piece by piece. How I talked to her for five minutes about my daughter, her quirks, her schoolwork, her favorite foods. And how my mother turned to me and said “Who’s Rabbit?” I reminded her gently that Rabbit was my daughter. “Oh! You have a daughter? How old is she?” And when I replied that she was seven, my mother said, “Oh I think I knew that. How old is she?”
Today I called and talked to her and she knew who I was, I think. We visited and she told me her boys had put a pellet stove in the dining room. “I know, Mom, remember? I was there visiting over the New Year.” Oh yes, she replied. Then, “Who is this again?” I said “It’s Mary!”
Then there was a pause. “Oh, Mary! I talked to Dad today and he’s doing real good at Hilde’s…”
Mary and Hilde are my mother’s sisters. My mom’s dad has been gone for eight years.
“Mom, do you need anything?” I asked, finally.
“Oh no,” she said. “They’re real good to me here. I have a nice big bed to sleep in and there’s a closet for my clothes. I’m just sitting here reading a book waiting for those people to come back home.”
“Mom.” I exhaled slowly. “You’re in your house. That’s your bedroom!”
“Oh, that’s right! There’s just those big plastic containers full of clothes here. Some lady came over one time and washed all my clothes and packed them up for me.”
“Mom, that was me!” I rubbed my face. “This is your daughter, Mary Pat.”
“Oh, I think I remember that now. We went out for breakfast.”
“Yes.”
“Well. Mary Pat,” her voice took on a serious tone. “I hate to tell you this, but Dad has cancer. It was real bad and they took out a tumor, but he’s getting along pretty good now.”
After a while, I just let her talk. She told me what she had for dinner, and then told me about having her appendix out when she was 14, and then told me again about her new wood pellet stove.
“Mama, I’m going to come visit you, probably in March. Would that be okay?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s nice. It’s nice to hear your voice. God bless you!”
I told PC later that my grief is for the loss of a million little things. How I could call her when things used to get really bad: (“Mom, I don’t know if I’ll ever get to be a mother!” and her reply of “Oh, Mary Pat. I’m so sorry. You just pray to the good Lord and I’ll say the rosary. You go into the prayer corner and pull the shawl over your head.” And then I’d laugh and she’d scold me, and then she’d change the subject.)
I grieve for stupid things: that she hasn’t sent a birthday or anniversary card in three years, when she was faithful with these my entire life. That I don’t get her little notes. “Made Spanish rice for lunch. Had coffee with my friends this morning. Dad’s playing music at the rest home this afternoon. Real chilly here today but supposed to be warmer tomorrow. I guess it’s time to get out the seed catalog!”
I grieve for the end of the traditional gift of two quarts of her spectacular dill pickles every summer. That I’ll never again get a jar of her chokecherry syrup, or homemade sauerkraut, or the little knicknacks she would press into my hand as we would leave her house or when she would come to visit.
There are advance directives for so many medical situations: instructions about what to do in the event you have a heart attack, or go into a coma, or become terminally ill with cancer. But there really are no advance directives on paper for Alzheimer’s.
Day by day she is forgetting her life. Day by day she is dissipating, even as my dad regains his strength. He lies alone at night in his hospital bed, waiting to go home to her. She lies alone in the big bed she no longer recognizes, without the anchor she’s relied on for sixty years to guide her. They are across town from one another and sometimes, I know it must feel like a million miles away.
Oh, Mary, I’m so sorry. I knew from other posts that your mother was dealing with forgetfulness, but I somehow missed that it was Alzheimer’s. That nasty S.O.B. took my grandmother almost two years ago. As Nancy Reagan (I think) said, it really is the long goodbye.
I will pray for you. The pain is just too much sometimes.
Never stop writing.
My Grandmother helped raise me and when she began to forget me the pain was intense, funny and frustrating – all at the same time. It is a long good-bye. My children only know her from my stories.
You are experiencing two blows. And it does come in rolling waves of pain. So sorry.
Aw, Mary, I wish I had something wise and helpful to say.
I will tell you that my dear friend Melanie’s mother, a year ago, was in a state of confusion even worse than your mom’s is now. She was completely lost. And then, slowly, she came back. At this point, she’s 75% her old self. She had a major trauma in her life – she lost her home of 50+ years to Katrina and the ensuing move was very hard on her. When Charlie hit a little over a year ago, the stress of another hurricane just snapped her, and she did exactly what your mom is doing. Melanie moved her here, to an assisted living facility, and it was, as stated above, intense, funny and frustrating – and heartbreaking, because she seemed to be in the midst of the final downhill slide of her life. Then, without warning, she started coming back. She got into a routine, got comfortable, and found herself again. She’s very forgetful, but sooo much better than she was. She’s about 83, I think.
Anyway, my point is that your mom may have had a breakdown related to your father’s illness, but it might not be as final as it seems. I don’t know, but don’t give up hope, love.
Mary, I take heart in what Mindy posted, and I hope you will, too. Perhaps medication such as Aricept could help, too. I am so sorry for your grief.
oh baby girl .. i am sooo sorry.
just know that i’m praying for you, think of you constantly and wish i could offer a hug.
Mary, I’m just so sorry.
Your writing is such a gift. Thank you for sharing yourself and touching the lives of others.
I have said it before and will say it again and again and again. No matter how you put it or how it happens….distance sucks. Totally.
My heart goes out to you. My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s and I wondered how my mother bore it. I’m so very sorry and am thinking of you.
she isn’t forgetting her life. it’s just re organized in her mind. My great grandmother used to tell me about her college days as if I were her roommate. Then she would tell my mom about her beautiful great granddaughter (me, I think she meant me?) Then years later when my grandmother was going through the same thing, I just listened. I didn’t try to correct her. Or make her remember what I wanted her to remember. I know in my heart she knew me, my daughter, my mom. My mom and I have an understanding. We know it’s going to happen to us and we will be ok.
It’s frustrating but I promise you she knows you and Rabbit. It’s jumbled but it’s in there.
We are thinking of you all.
So many losses piling up at once, Mary. It must feel so overwhelming. I’m sorry this is hitting all at the same time, and so hard. Peace to you, love.
(Sending a hug.)
It’s really hard to know what to say except I’m sorry this is happening to your mom and I will continue to pray for your family.
i am so sorry.
thinking of you.
I’m sorry that you’re going through this with your mom. What a struggle, on top of what you’re going through with your dad.
I feel for you and am praying. You know your mom loves you very much, and Rabbit too, even if her mind lapses. Her heart doesn’t.
I’m hoping that when Dad gets back home she will get better, she’s just had to much disruption in her life all at one time.
This is the first time I’ve read your blog, and your entry broke my heart. I’ve been there with my mom, too– she died 3 years ago (Alzheimer’s) and I still have the last jar of raspberry jam she made for me in the freezer, unopened. It must be 10 years old now.
It’s a terrible time for you, and there’s nothing anyone can do to make it better. All you can do is keep loving her, and hope that your love reaches past the confusion and memory loss.
I have no idea what it is like to lose your mother but my grandmother had Alzheimer’s and I had a number of Great-Aunts with Alzheimer’s (early onset and regular) and dementia.
As hard as it is, and it is devastating, and frustrating, and heartrending, the best thing I could do is try to walk with them through their disease instead of rage against it. If Grandma was showing me the basement of her 1-room apartment in the nursing home- I let her. If she thought people were stealing from her, I told her I believed her and that we would find a way to make it OK, but we should just look around in case some things got hidden along the way.
Sometimes you can’t do that. When they are fighting it, or are angry or frustrated. Plus you want them to be- them. But if you let it go sometimes you can, if you try, be with them in their moment. It helped me a little.