Alzheimer's Reduces Loved ones to mere shadows
As I write this I am some 38,000 feet over the Atlantic reflecting on the importance of memory. My mother and I have just placed my Father in a nursing home in England, because his Alzheimer’s was too much for her to cope with at home (she is nearly 80). Throughout this process I have been oddly detached and clinical. True, I did major in Psychology in college and perhaps this has helped me put this whole mess in perspective in a rather clinical fashion.
You see, memory is what makes us who we are. It makes our personality, because we are the sum of our past experiences (plus some genetics, but let’s keep it simple). Somewhere, deep inside, when Mom or Dad or a teacher said to us in 1st grade that it is bad to lie, we register that and somewhere we form a nest of memories that turn us into fairly honest people. When we were told by a loved one that it would be better to listen to others and contribute to a conversation rather than concentrating on ourselves in front of others, we took it to heart, and learned to be more empathetic. You get the picture.
Now imagine that each of those building blocks fades and this become re-ordered as one disappears completely. Yes, we become someone else, at least for a time. This is so hard for those closest to the patient. Later, whole sections of our memories simply disappear, and we find it difficult to talk or walk – because we have difficulty remembering word or how to perform the most automatic of acts.
In the end, we forget everything and then we just exist, incapable of forming a memory or a relationship of any kind. We can’t even control our body.
If it sounds terrifying, it is. Initially, the patient shares the terror, but perversely the illness robs them of the memory of what is happening to them, a sort of reverse blessing.
Meanwhile, what of the spouse, the children, the friends? They are left perplexed and devastated. As my mother said, the nursing home seems final, and yet, it is not. The grieving is so much more drawn out than a funeral, because your loved one goes away a piece at a time. There is the person we loved, in body. Can we still love them and care for them even if they are not the people we knew? This is the hard part, and I suggest, the true test of love. You are looking at a shadow of a person. The closest thing to a ghost most of us will ever see. And yet, as my Mother said, “he is everything I have, for 54 years – can I do anything else but love him?”
I know there are readers out there who are going through this or have already gone through this. I cannot tell you how much admiration and respect I have for you or for your essential qualities of patience, endurance and love. What I can tell you is that you are not alone and you will get through this, one day at a time. And that you are in my thoughts and prayers.