Again, I think if I am being most honest about what the past year has looked like for us, and what Alzheimer's does to a family, it will entail being pretty raw and very sad. I want to spend this week and next writing about the transition, and have decided to start by sharing about how I experienced and felt about the move. I tried to sit down and pull something coherent out of my mind, but already felt a bit too far removed to find the right words. Instead I ended up flipping through my journal from a few months back. While this is relatively personal, I think the best way to share a snapshot of what this past year looked and felt like is to extract my words from a few months ago.
Next week I'll share a bit more about how Mom's doing -- less feelings and the grief that came in the immediate weeks following the move, and more general observations of what the transition has meant for us both.
We moved Mom on a Sunday - March 11th. The day before we had a big birthday party. All of her friends came in from all over the southern USofA, and we laughed. Mom beamed and hugged and delighted in the presence and comfort of all of her favorite people. All in all it was a roaring success.
That Sunday -- I can't fully remember the weather... I think it was cool, cloudy, and not raining. I ran around frantically but adding no value. And still, things went quickly and seamlessly. When it became obvious that we were going to pull the move off with relative ease I still felt some shock and disbelief.
"I can't jinx myself!" I said, laughing to cover my anxiety; joking with those around me.
Still, nothing went awry; it all went smoothly -- providentially so.
And yet, the week after, as I answered so many questions of "how is she doing?!" with positivity and genuine relief - I was stricken, haunted with loss.
Most evenings that first week I was running over to her new place for a visit, and I invariably found myself with a sharpie in my pockets. I found them in my robe, coats, pants pocket. They were always on hand, standing ready as I constantly found myself marking up more items with her initials to take to her new home.
And then the nights... previously at nights when I would wake up to go to the bathroom I would walk gingerly in, trying to stay quiet. However, by the time I'd reached the toilet I'd often hear Mom stirring directly below me, woken by my rising and going through the same motions in a half-awake/half-sleeping disorientation.
That first night without her in our home, as I lumbered to the bathroom I felt swallowed by a sadness, an unexpected loss of security in knowing she wasn't below me. This was strange...so strange to me. Mom's presence had offered Charlie and I so little security. If anything she needed care from us and often added to our stress.
And yet, once she was gone I felt the real loss of her presence. I realized how much seeing her as we rotated and moved through our days was still important. She has remained so much herself that even though her Alzheimer's-induced repetitions and losses drove me nuts, that her small quirks and behaviors -- her smiles, her sassy stomping, the way her eyes lit up in the morning, all of that meant something. The unacknowledged presence of her body language and her spirit - I suddenly felt it's absence. I'm lost in the grieving of something (and someone) I had begrudged at worst, or something I had failed to recognize and cherish at minimum.
It haunts me and hits me when I look across the dinner table and she's not sitting there. I feel a tortured sorrow when she's not fumbling her way out of her bedroom as soon as I come downstairs most mornings.
"This will be a great time!" a friend told me "You'll just be able to visit with her; you can be her daughter, without all the daunting challenges of caring for her."
I hope that is true. I do feel relief and less anger in her absence. But I'm so sad for the way the emptiness taunts me and reminds me of all I took for granted. It blurs and undermines the relief, and consumes all the space in my brain, the air in my lungs.
To sign up to walk or donate to our team, click here: http://act.alz.org/site/TR/Walk2018/KY-GreaterKentuckyandSouthernIndiana?px=6905271&pg=personal&fr_id=11244
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