Today I brought my darling angel with me to do the obligatory, bi-weekly trip to the Alzheimer's unit to visit my 62 year old mom.
Every other week is the precise frequency of visits required to keep guilt at bay. More often, and I dread the visits and try to rush through them. Less often, and the guilt gnaws at me, keeping me away from that side of town. Then when I do visit, she's usually had some major change that makes me feel like the worst daughter on the face of the planet. Since I have one brother, we each take every other weekend. We employ a "don't ask, don't tell" about the other's visit (reduces guilt), and we will both trade any amount of guilt for not having her live with either of us.
So precisely 2 weeks after my last visit, we drop in to see her before dinner. As I tell these kinds of stories, the question everyone wants to ask about now is "does she still know you?"
No. Yes. Sort of. Her eyes change when she sees me and my 4 year old princess. We hug and kiss her, and she hugs back. I say "I love you", and on a good day she says "yes", then laughs when I tease her for not reciprocating.
Today, she was sitting at the table with 6 or so other residents, beside a crotchety-looking old man reading a newspaper, and crying silently to herself. My favorite nurse said "I'm so glad to see you! If you didn't come by today I was going to call." Suddenly, I'm not nearly as glad to see her as she is to see me.
So the story is that my mother, who has forever defined her life around a man's opinion of her, has hooked up with the newest resident in her unit. As in swapping saliva in the day room. Trying to go into his room at bedtime. Ooo, yuck, please make it stop!
And this is the hell that's my mother's Alzheimer's disease. To relive the theme of her life, day after day after day. Other victims of this disease spend their days getting ready to go to "work" or waiting on the long deceased husband to come home. My mother finds the most self absorbed, charming, alcoholic (or former alcoholic) man in the room, and attaches herself to him. Wraps her life around him. And in her diseased state, she wanders around sobbing when she can't find him. She sits beside him weeping when he ignores her. When he gives her some attention (or more likely remembers that she's the floozy in the building) she's blissfully happy.
Only it never lasts. He looks away, and her reason for living leaves. Dementia or not, the roller coaster is real and brutal. Absent a man, her quality of life is not too bad, given that she's 8 years into this disease. She jokes around, enjoys her music and her things, and recognizes her favorite people.
Does my mother remember who I am? That question doesn't concern me at all. The real question is "does she remember who she is?" Sadly, yes. And not in a good way.
So what does this mean for those of us working our way up the emotional evolution ladder? If dementia should take me, what familiar struggles will my brain replay? I think of myself as much more evolved now, in my 40s, than I was in my 20s or even my 30s, and I've moved on to a higher order of problems. Will my generation - with our years of therapy, support groups, and inner work - present a different picture when Alzheimer's rears it's ugly head? Perhaps I'll be wandering the halls of the dementia unit trying to remember my soul's purpose, or distraught because I can't find my inner peace (I'm sure I left it around here somewhere!)
Perhaps, when my memory starts to go I'll start leaving post-it notes for myself that say things like "don't forget to meditate" or "remember, love is all that matters". And then I'll look in the freezer and my inner peace will be right there where I left it.
