My Mom My Hero: Alzheimer's - A Mother and Daughter's Bittersweet Journey by Hirsch, R. (book recommendations .TXT) 📕

canvas. It is amazing that Alzheimer’s can just remove one’s life, as if it never existed. She has no idea what is happening in the world (which may not be such a bad thing). Although my mom does not remember that I just called or visited her, I know that she can still feel all the love I have for her.

Life can be great and life can be wonderful. Life can also be cruel and life can be hard. None of us know what lies ahead, so we must truly be happy and thankful for each new day that we have. Each and every day is truly a gift. I know deep in my heart that my mom only wishes for me a day filled with sunshine.

COMMENTS

I’ve been reading your blog for quite some time now. I can’t remember how I stumbled upon it, but I am the primary caregiver to my eighty-five-year-old mother who also has Alzheimer’s. Your blog touches me very much as our moms are similar in many ways. My mom is petite, a fiery redhead, who dances every chance she can get. Even her recent onset of hallucinations mirrors part of your journey as well. I know it has to be so difficult to think about having to move your mom into a nursing home. I know I will dread it when the time comes for me. Thanks for sharing your walk.

—Anonymous

Bless you for such a beautiful story of love, courage, and faithfulness. I care for my ninety-one-year-old father who also has Alzheimer’s. Some days he cannot remember much of his life or who he is, but I do. No one in a facility would know my father’s history. A caregiver in a facility would not know he was born into a fifteen-member family, raised on a farm with ten brothers and three sisters, that he was married for sixty-three years to my mother, that his beloved son, a police officer, is in heaven, or that when he says I love you, he really means it. As you noted with your mother, I know if my father had any comprehension of his true status, he would have wanted leave this life long ago. I pray daily for a cure for this most heart-wrenching and debilitating disease.

—Anonymous

Treasure every moment. I lost my mom to Alzheimer’s on March 22, 2011, at 3:43 a.m. We nursed Mom at home. She stayed in a nursing home for about six weeks while a package of care was put into place. That was the most traumatizing thing for us to do as a family. Only now am I realizing just how brave my beautiful mother was as the last three years of her life were spent in bed. I don’t know how she had the strength, but I do know she always kept her dignity especially when caregivers called to wash her. We always say now, “It’s like a long goodbye,” but the things Mom went through were unbelievable. I’m just glad that as a family we could be with her. I treasured every moment, even down to changing her pad, to feeding her, to washing her hair. If I could just walk one mile in her shoes, then I will happy. I feel so blessed that I am her daughter and my world has certainly changed now she’s gone. I miss her so very much.

—Margie

March 9, 2012

Little Things Can Mean A Lot

My mom grew up with an enormous thirst for learning and a true love for books. Every summer her parents took her to the country, where she would spend hours reading under a tree. I remember when as I was a child, how she delighted in sharing this experience with me. She loved words as much as she loved reading. One of her favorite books to share was Gone With the Wind. Through my childhood years, she always encouraged me to read.

In 1924 when Mom was born and later in her teenage years, there was no such thing as a television. I think that her mind and love of reading made it possible for her to imagine what it might have been like to travel the world. She had a thirst to keep learning, something she took well into her aging years.

My husband and I decided to see a tour of the New York Public Library (located on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue). It is a treasured New York City landmark that we had not been to in several years. It is probably rated as the greatest library in the United States, and ranked very high in the world. The collection of books and the beauty of this institute can take one’s breath away.

As a young child, I did not share my mom’s love of literature. I excitedly shared with her about my planned trip to visit the library, which she had very little response to. She did at least say, “Oh, are you going to buy a book?” Somehow, Mom was able to connect the dots to what a library might be. Her love of literature, reading, and words are now sadly all forgotten. Alzheimer’s has taken that part of her world from her.

Yet since her vocabulary was one of her strengths, she still can spell almost immediately any word that I ask of her. With macular degeneration and no concentration or memory, my mother finds reading to be an impossible task for her, although her spelling skills completely amaze me.

I tried to lighten the conversation, probably more for myself than her, and shared with her that maybe one day “our book” will appear on the shelves of the library. Mom answered with, “Maybe one day, one never knows.”

I smiled to myself, because somewhere as my mom slips away, there always seems to be some shimmer of light, as words of reason still flow from her.

This may not seem like a miracle for most people, yet for someone who has