Tag: mom

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Life or Death?

“They’re hacking my brain!” she exclaimed. “There’s a camera in the ceiling fan recording me. They follow me everywhere!”

You probably think this is about how Alzheimer’s has hijacked my mother’s brain.

But this is a story about my step-daughter.

My mother’s had her share of delusions. The man in the closet wearing her high heels. Being held prisoner in the cellar with illegal immigrants. She’s never owned heels. Her memory care home has one level.

Both women have a brain disease. Last week, one chose to end her life. The disease became too real: sanity was elusive; treatment refused.

Again, I find myself packing up a life once lived.

Grateful Dead posters. Zeppelin CDs. Crystal Scotch glasses. Prada handbags. Digging through the layers tells the story of my step-daughter’s life.

We all have a chapter we don’t read aloud. In this case, there were volumes.

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Don’t let shame or fear of being labeled with a mental illness stop you from seeking help. Find out more here or talk to someone 24/7 at 1-800-273-8255.

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Love/Hate Relationship

Yesterday, we went for a walk, my mother and I. We had just finished lunch in the main dining room of the senior home, one of her favorite things to do.

“This is a horrible place,” my mother says, the chocolate cake from moments ago long forgotten. “You can’t imagine what happens here.”

I’ve heard this almost as many times as I’ve heard what a wonderful place it is. And I’ve learned over the years to nod, smile and redirect when she experiences the extreme emotions of Alzheimer’s.

“Look at the beautiful marigold bush!” I point to the purple sage on the xeriscaped lawn. These days, we call most flowers “marigolds,” regardless of hue. The familiar memory erases her distress as swiftly as she shifts between reality and dementia.

Today, when I visit, the residents are listing famous heroes on the white board. We take a walk, my mother and I. She picks a few pink oleanders.

“What beautiful marigolds!” she says. “I love this place!”

When we return, we begin a new white board game with her friends, listing all the things they love about living here.

“Chocolate cake!” my mother yells out. “We haven’t had that in years!”

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Silent Summer

She was Rachel Carson of the kitchen. Window ledge peppered with driftwood and mussel shells from the cove across the street. Turkey feathers from the backyard. Sprigs of goldenrod in rusty tea tins.

Her cooking was an extension of the great outdoors. The essays she wrote for her monthly food newsletter were embellished with pen-and-ink sketches of starfish and crabapples from our orchard, their dull thud a lullaby for deer at dawn and dusk.

Crockpot applesauce called for precisely eighteen of those very crabapples, as indicated on the cider-splattered recipe card. Her cobbler required blueberries she’d picked each summer. During her vegetarian phase, she made peanut loaf using freshly-grated carrots from the garden. “Better than meatloaf,” she said. It wasn’t.

Her love for the outdoors extended beyond the kitchen; like the spruce-choked woods and saltwater breezes surrounding us, the farmhouse begged that all its rooms be nature-clad. So she draped snakeskins over her collection of King Henry VIII dolls. Looped dried lobster antennae into a chain like the construction paper Christmas garland I made in school, hanging it from the beams of our barn-turned-living-room.

Cleansing the soul of this house fuses our creative spirits while she is still on this earth. And although my mother is not physically here, her aura cradles me with comfort and inspiration.