Alzheimer's makes for a difficult holiday
and a time to ask: 'Hey God, how come?'
Thanksgiving morning 2011 will be remembered by my sister Theresa and I as the day our mother showed us a new side of Alzheimer’s. I was having 30 for dinner, and Theresa agreed to come early to get Mom ready.
All preparations were in order, thanks to Ray, my husband, and my daughters. Turkey is in the oven, tomato sauce is slowly heating, ravioli are in the freezer, the table’s set (beautifully, I might add), the house is clean and the sun is shining. I decided to go to an 11 a.m. yoga class.
Mom was up, had a good breakfast and agreed to wait for Theresa to get showered and dressed for the day. She moved from the kitchen to the living room and sat in the recliner, watching the pre-parade shows on TV without expression.
Meanwhile, Theresa, who had been working since dawn, putting together the salad and finishing the carrot cake she was bringing to dinner, wanted to squeeze in her own workout.
Two years ago, when the full-time caregiving of our parents started, we wouldn’t have thought of doing something for ourselves first. But today, we went for it. We did what the experts say that caregivers need to do. Take care of yourselves. Even if it meant making Mom wait.
When I returned from my class at noon and didn’t see Theresa’s car, I knew Mom wouldn’t be happy. But I wasn’t prepared for what I found. My soft-spoken and understanding 89-year-old mother had transformed into an unreasonable, tantrum-throwing adolescent.
When I tried to help her up from the chair to begin getting ready, she refused. “I’m not getting dressed today!”
“Mom, the company is coming in a few hours,” I said.
“I don’t care. Where is Theresa? You said she would be here. I’m mad at her. And you, you didn’t need to go your hoga class or whatever you call it.” She pointed her finger at me with an anger and hurt that broke my heart: “You ruined my day, now I’m going to ruin yours.”
When Theresa arrived a few minutes later, Mom was back in bed, where she vowed to stay all day. For the next 45 minutes or so, we took turns going in and trying to convince her to get up. Ray tried. My daughters tried. Theresa’s teenage son, Nicholas, tried.
Sometime later, I heard the shower running and sighed with relief. Just before the first guest arrived, Mom appeared dressed, made up and looking ready for a party.
Later that evening, I asked Theresa how she did it. “I cried,” she said. “I was so upset that I couldn’t help it. And when I started crying, our roles reversed to the way they used to be and Mom tried to console me.”
It sometimes feels like walking a tightrope. Balancing the needs of your elderly parents with your own presents a new challenge every single morning. As one reader wrote to me: “. . . it blots out the entire horizon of the rest of one's life.”
Nothing in your growing-up years prepares you for the emotional whiplash of having your mother gradually become your child. Nothing.
When she looked at me with the unreasonableness of a rebellious adolescent and said “I’m going to ruin your day,” I wanted to cry. But so did I when she shuffled slowly out of the bathroom one evening a week ago in her pajamas and asked, “Are you going to tuck me in?”
I read, I listen to experts, I talk to my clients who have family members with dementia and I think I know. I think I get it.
Intellectually, I do. In its simplest explanation, the brain shrinks due to the death of nerve cells. (Here is an exceptional description of Alzheimer's affect on the brain.)
But emotionally, I never will understand why my mom's ability to care for herself, to remember clearly the day before or to reason began to slip away when my dad never "missed a trick." (His words.)
More than once in the past year a ninth-grade creative writing assignment has come to mind. Mr. Burns would write a provocative title on the board, and the students were to write the story. One particular title has stayed with me over the years, and it is: “Hey God, How Come?”
Anne Marie Gattari is owner of BrightStar of Grosse Pointe / Macomb. Contact her via email.
