FU%# You, Alzheimer’s
I miss my Mom.
I miss hearing her voice. I miss her saying “Hi Pat”. I miss her getting so nervous that we were driving “up” from Philly. “Up” is Connecticut-speak for “north”. I miss how she would leave the light on and still be dressed and ready, no matter what time of night it was.
I don’t remember if Mom gave me bunny ears but I would like to think she did. Also, this breakfast was amazing.
I miss how Mom and Dad always had Cracker Barrel cheese in the red package, sweet potato chips and Bogle wine. I miss them barely having the heat on and instead encouraging us to “put on a sweater”. I miss how Dad would call “chow line!!!” and that meant “come get your own food you lazy bums”. I miss how, at some point during every visit, we would take a walk around the block and Mom would just quietly ask questions and want to know about my “love life” and I would be instantly embarrassed like a 14 year old (sorry Mom, I left out a lot of funny stories!).
I have no parents. And yet I have one parent. I am an orphan and a grownup and a parent.
This might explain some of my current obsession with making their baby books- so that when I die they will have a book of memories. I can’t remember when Felix got all of his teeth though so I just wrote “between 1 and 2 years old”. Good enough.
When I’ve visited in the past few months I get scraps- pieces of what our relationship was. I could see her, but I can’t get close to her. We are in the same air, yet discouraged from breathing it together. I thought she would die before I saw her again. So I am thankful for the time to say goodbye, to say hello, to say “I love you” again. Every once in a while, over FaceTime, I say “I love you” and then hold my breath, daring to hope that she will say it back. But she says nothing back, or sometimes sleeps, or sometimes I get a smile or a brief laugh. I know she does love me. It’s there - it’s wordless.
See? Wordless.
Recently the place she lives closed their doors to all visitors. Again. And I wanted to write about what this is like. So many doors have closed to Mom. At first the door to the room filled with memories closed. I would be so frustrated that she would forget how to do something, or not remember an important detail of Dad’s care. How could she not remember when we had just talked about it? And then the door to recognition and shared experiences closed. How could she not know my children’s’ names? She didn’t know the people most important to me? The day she looked at me blankly… I don’t wish that on anyone. And then the door to laughter and stories and even repeated stories closed. Where I once was so so annoyed that she kept repeating herself, now it would mean so much to hear her say a sentence of any kind.
When I wrote this it was pouring rain in my carffice. What’s that? Oh, an office you make in your car. It’s new. Just came out for COVID.
The current situation is rough. I don’t like not having the option to share the same space with Mom. But I don’t need a visitor restriction to close doors to her. This terrible disease has already closed so many.
F you Alzheimer’s.
