The Visit

A friend came to visit.  She is a lovely lady who took the time to come over and meet my mother.  She spoke to her and conversed with her allowing for the fact that many of the questions asked elicited strange responses that made no sense.  She smiled and nodded, commented appropriately and continued to chat amiably.  I watched and marveled at the way my mother was engaged.  She thoroughly enjoyed the visit.  With a sparkle in her eyes she was  joking, laughing,  and chattering away happily.  She was listening and responding as I had not seen her do in a long, long time. 

"Hmm," I told my friend.  "Mom is really different today.  She's not like this.  Usually she's withdrawn and quiet."  My friend didn't believe me.  She was seeing 'Old Mom', Mom from five years ago, Mom who remembered who I was, Mom who could tell you where she was born, Mom who could tell you what she liked to do.

 When my friend left, Mom fell silent and I wondered about this.  What had happened and what was so different now?  I immediately blamed myself.  I didn't take enough time with her.  I worried that I was not as friendly, as engaging, as kind, as warm as my friend.  Too often I corrected and chastised for something.  I was cross, short tempered, impatient.  My voice was harsh, my words clipped, my attitude negative.  I was rapidly slipping into the guilt syndrome.  Then I thought of something.  When I was a young mother, I would correct the children anticipating behaviors that I had come to know all too well but others might not actually see.  Perhaps to others I appeared strict.  With my mother, the same was true.  Just because she seemed cogent, didn't mean that she was. 

While my friend was visiting we had tea and assorted pastries.  Knowing that my mother forgets that she has eaten she will continue to help herself until she becomes sick to her stomach and then throws up.  It is extremely unpleasant and I try to offset this by removing food that might be in front of her.  As we sat sipping our tea and conversing, Mom continued to reach for sweets.  I took charge by telling her that she might want to stop sampling the sweets; reminding her that she had asked me for Tums a half hour earlier because of heartburn.  I moved the plate away.  My mother's expression changed.  She was like a small child whose mother took her ice cream cone away. My friend regarded me like I was ruining all the fun.  She said something  to lighten the mood and looked at me for permission to give her just one more.  I relented.  She invited my mother to sample one more sweet and Mom's eyes brightened immediately.  Later, after my friend left, Mom asked me what she could take for indigestion.  There was no point in reminding Mom that she had overeaten.  Instead I gave her more Tums and watched as she chewed them and sat down at the table waiting for me to prepare dinner.  I sighed deeply.  I knew that I was fighting a losing battle. 

In the middle of the night Mom's bedroom door opened.  The alarms sounded and I nudged Skip to go see what was going on.  (Yes!  He is a saint.  He is more patient with Mom than I am.  Of course it is partly because she is his mother-in-law and not his mother.  I think that makes a difference.  One can be more detached and more patient when not directly related.)  He came back down saying that she was very confused and didn't even know who he was.  This morning when Mom called to come downstairs,  I could see that she was very disoriented and required far more assistance with everything.  She made mistakes:  she took her nightgown off, put on her underwear and then put her nightgown back on.  She put her shoes on before her socks.  She reached for her pillowcase confusing it for an article of clothing.  I could tell that today would be a 'bad day'.  She spent time wandering about mindlessly.  She would go from chair to chair, from room to room never staying in one place for more than a minute.  She reminded me of a caged animal.  I asked her if she would like to draw and she declined saying she would watch TV but when she sat to watch she would remain  for only a minute before returning to her pacing, going from one room's chair to another room's chair, perching for a moment, touching something, looking out the window, picking up a paper, turning it over, reading it for a moment with no comprehension and then back to another room to do the same thing.  I tried my friend's tactic of enthusiastically involving her in conversation but my words fell on deaf ears.  She was engaged in obsessive behavior rubbing at her face and arms over and over.  Just now, she finished her lunch, took her glass of iced tea and poured it out into the sink then threw the glass in the trash.  When I stopped her she protested saying that it wasn't the trash. 

"What is it?" I asked her. 

She looked around in confusion.  She had no answer.  Then, as I lifted the glass out of the trash and placed it in the sink she told me that she had put the glass in the sink.  She gave me an accusing look as if to say, "Why would you say something so silly to me when I clearly put the glass in the sink?"

I wanted to call my friend and ask her to come over immediately.  I felt exonerated.  I don't know who was having tea with us yesterday.  This was my mother.  She was back.  Wait.  What was I saying?!  I have spent the past 2 years complaining about the awful progression of Alzheimer's disease and how it has robbed me of my mother.  Then, the moment she comes back even just a little, instead of celebrating the moment I become defensive.   I realized how much I had changed.  In the beginning I was in denial.  I expected my mother to bounce back from her cognitive difficulties.  I wanted to hide them from others and was embarrassed by her small slip ups, forgetfulness, new mannerisms. Once I realized that she would not return to the mother I had always known, I accepted that fact and now I wanted others to know it too. 

It was another epiphany.  I had turned the corner.  From denial to acceptance, I could let go now.  There was no need to correct, to argue, to scold.  It was a startling realization!  Even though I usually celebrate each new insight I may have in life, this time was different.  This insight came  with an overwhelming sadness.  Once again I reached deep within...to my core...to my center to find the love, the wisdom, the understanding that would get me through this.  With a sudden determination, strength, and daughterly love for her mother, I gave Mom a hug.  "I love you, Mom," I told her.  In a flash, the sadness, the frustration, the impatience vanished.  In their place -- gratitude.  It came on the wings of my mother's sweet smile.