Tag: caregiving

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Old Familiar Carols

Thanksgiving is over, Black Friday a distant memory. Christmas lights twinkle along the block. Holiday season is here.

You have a week of respite before returning to Alzheimer’s World, the world that needs no advent calendar to mark the season’s frenzied restlessness, the world where family Christmas traditions have long been forgotten.

You’ll be home for the holidays with your mother. You have high hopes. Your mind is a flurry of ideas: decorations and cookies, carols and cards.

You’ll decorate the tree. The spruce once cut from the woods is now artificial; she doesn’t notice. You’ll bake the popovers she made every Christmas morning; she loves this “new” recipe.

You’ll fill stockings. Help wrap gifts because last year, Scotch tape induced panic attacks. You’ll be home for the holidays, on a one-way ticket. You’ll be home because she’s your mother.

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The Recipe

For thirty-two years, my mother wrote a cooking newsletter. Filled with homespun tales and hand-drawn illustrations, its readership spanned the globe.

A graphic artist by trade, her talents weren’t confined to canvas. She was a gourmet cook, too, lovingly testing each recipe in the kitchen of our 175-year-old farmhouse.

I learned to cook there. At nine, I made my first pie: peach, with lattice crust. Two years later, when my separated parents were trying to make another go of it, I baked a cassoulet, my father’s favorite. My hopes for a reunion were high. The meal was perfect.

The marriage was not.

Mom remarried; I moved away. Over the years, the newsletter yielded a book deal and blog.

And now, in that tiny kitchen where masterpieces were once made, her apron gathers dust. Together, we’ll bake cookies and fudge this holiday season, recipes from a hazy long ago as fleeting as the memories we create.

 

 

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Out of the Woods

Our new puppy, Max, was a bundle of joy. For the first day.

Then he stopped eating. Languid and lifeless, he lay on his dog bed. A visit to the vet confirmed our fear: the little guy had parvo.

The parvovirus, for which his vaccination was questionable, attacks a puppy’s immune system; those under ten weeks have little chance of pulling through. Our vet was optimistic. She’d seen far worse, and felt he had a good chance.

Still, for four days he wouldn’t eat, subsisting only on a daily IV of fluids. I resigned myself to his imminent death, making his life as comfortable as possible.

Some days it feels like everyone around me is dying. Our beloved golden retriever. A long-time friend with ALS. My mother.

Miraculously, Max rebounded. And now, he’s unstoppable.

If only Alzheimer’s were that easy.