My mother had one of the hardest jobs that any person can
have. She was a military spouse. She followed my dad around from military base
to military base for twenty-three years. She had to make my dad’s career first
in her life. She had to give up her dreams, uproot her life over and over
again, create new homes in echoed-filled houses every few years, and shoulder responsibilities
all alone when dad was away on remote assignments. Dad served his country, but so did my mother.
In the past two months my father has lost the ability to dress
himself. Mom has to assist him. He cannot speak an entire sentence. He seldom
tries to communicate much if anyone from outside the immediate family
is present. He has trouble eating because he can’t make his hands or his brain
connect. Mom has to prepare his plate in
advance, cutting up his meat into bite sized pieces, making sure the food isn’t
served on a plate of the same color as the meal (dad often can’t distinguish
subtle variations in color and will not “see” an item if it blends into the
background even a little). I suspect his
thirst and hunger signals are being affected also. I spent an entire day with
him a few weeks ago and after hours of walking around a flea market I noticed
he had not drank anything since we had arrived. When I bought water for him, he
guzzled it down. He had not said a word.
I felt lacking that I hadn’t anticipated this occurance.
The Alzheimer’s is finally starting to take away the last scraps
of identity from my father. I am trying to
prepare myself, but how does one just accept a father disappearing before their
very eyes like smoke? I can’t. But he’s
going away. And I have to accept it. I have no other choice, nor does else anyone
in my family. Least of all my mother.
I try and remember the conversations my father and I had right
after he was diagnosed almost four years ago. He spoke of his fears. Of the
dreadful certainty that very soon he would be a burden on his family. He cried
and I cried with him. One day that
summer, he and I were in his backyard yard and I asked him if he had his life to
do over would he live it the same way, and did he have any regrets. My father
stood up to his full height, looked off into a distance that only he could see
and smiled,. “I had a good life. I traveled. I did things. I saw places I never
thought I’d see. I wouldn’t change anything. I have no regrets”. I try and
remember those words whenever I look at the man he is now; confused, slowed down
to an almost shuffling old-before-his-time, trying desperately not to leave
us, yet not knowing how to stay.
I catch precious fleeting flashes of my "Before Alzheimer's" (BA) father every so
often.
They are brief. Those times most often occur in small social settings. To my eye, one who knows him, my father appears not able to
process the conversations going on around him. I watch him closely as his old smile appears,
he nods his head as if he’s following along, but I know he’s not. I see the way he
glances slolwy away, how fixed his smile becomes, how his eyes drift.
How his hand trembles. I don't know if others notice.
My mother has to tell my father the same things over and
over again. I picked mom’s car up from the local garage the other day after she
had had the oil changed. I parked the car in their garage and went inside to
visit while I waited for my husband to pick me up. Dad came into the room where mom and I were
talking. He stood, seemingly puzzled and started to ask, “Where…..” and couldn’t
get another word out. He pointed toward the garage. My mother supplied the rest
of the question; “Where is the car? It’s in the garage, Jimmy. Teri went and
got it for us”. He shook his head as if he understood and walked away satisfied
with mom’s answer. Not three minutes later he was back again trying to ask the
same question. Mom gently intercepted the question before he could even attempt
to get the first word out, and he walked away again seemingly content with her answer.
Mom whispered, “He’ll ask me the same question five more times”.
I don’t know where my
mother gets her patience or her strength. From some deep well where her and my
dad’s love and marriage has lived for fifty-three years, I suppose. That marriage
is theirs, not mine. I cannot trespass into that place. I am my dad’s daughter.
She is his wife. Dad’s wife, my mom, cares for him tenderly and intimately in
ways I know she never dreamed she would have to. My mother and father
are almost cocooned together. Dad doesn’t like
it when she is away from him for any length of time, He will keep asking where she
is, his hands shake more, and he becomes agitated. My mom is the only anchor he
has left.
But I see the toll it is
taking on her. How long can she do this? Right now, I know she is taking it day
by day. That’s all she can do. She told me last week, “I don’t know how much
longer I can keep going to church. Your dad has a hard time getting
dressed and he isn’t comfortable around all the people”. My mom’s
one true out let is her church home.
The
more my father retreats from life, the more my mom is forced to retreat also.
People tell my mother, “Call if there’s anything I can do”.
Then she doesn’t hear another word from them. Why
do they do this? Why don’t they just take some kind of action? Why don’t they
call and tell mom they are coming to visit dad? Why don’t they offer to take
him for a short ride? Why don’t they DO something? I know. It’s because most
people don’t know how to act around someone with Alzheimer’s. My dad might embarrass
them or say something he shouldn’t.
But
my father is dying. There is no doubt about that. There is no treatment. There
is no cure. Why is my father not afforded the same respect and care as someone dying
from terminal cancer?
If he had cancer, people
would visit, sit around his deathbed in loving concern, bring flowers, talk to
him. That, in the end, is the true tragedy of Alzheimer’s.
No one wants to be around it. They don’t
understand it. They fear it. In their minds, my father has become the Alzheimer’s.
So, people do nothing or little, even me, and my father fades away a bit more each day. And my mother is becoming exhausted.
She has risen to the vows she took fifty-three years
ago. I look at my mom with pride, and an almost weeping amazement overcomes me.
She is tired, hurt, mourning, angry. She is walking
in a land she never thought she would ever have to prepare for. And she is
holding my father’s hand on this, their last journey together, just as she did
for twenty-three years of journeying: from Georgia to Oregon, Colorado to Mississippi,
Japan to Texas, Georgia to Texas, Crete to Texas, Mississippi to Georgia. Ending
up where she started.
She never complained,
not that I ever heard. Her talent for making each empty new house into a home
was taken for granted.
But, I see now, Mom. I really do see. Maybe a little late, but I do see. Whenever someone says
I look like you and that I have your blue eyes, I smile because I know there is
also a chance that your strength runs though my blood.
I can
only hope….
Happy Belated Mother's Day. I couldn't get the words right the first try. Now they are complete.
We never had Xmas photos showing the entire family together because there were only the four of us.. someone had to take the photos (usually dad!). This was taken in downtown Iraklion, Crete in 1970. The floors were marble and all we had for heat were two small kerosene space heaters. Thank goodness it didn't get too cold there. The following year we were placed in base housing and there were actually other American kids to share Xmas morning toys with! 
