Comfort in Writing

 Comfort in Writing

I've always found comfort in writing. Even if the writing were only for me  

When my Mother was still living in her home, before the big move to an assisted living, I would go and stay with her about once a month for a few days. My sister was her primary caregiver and my brother and I would stay to relieve her. 

It was a challenging time, but also very rewarding. The grief I felt slowly losing my Mom to Alzheimer’s was gut wrenching. The emotions were so big and although I wasn't able to share them at time, I did share some in writing. While Mom was napping, watching a baseball game or tucked away in her bed, I would journal my thoughts, feelings and fears. Here are a few entries from three of those visits. 

Sunday May 30th, 2021

At Mom's, with a few minutes of thoughts to share. 

Alzheimer's is ugly. It shows you layers of yourself. It also shows you the vulnerabilities of your loved one who has this ugly disease inside of them. 

When your life roles change, there is always some resistance to hang on to the old rather than embrace the new. Especially when the old defines who you are. I was a daughter who had a very strong, independent, opinionated, and self-driven mother. My Mom could do anything. She was the best listener and always assured you everything would work ouit in your most troubling of times. She was a fixer. She made things better by taking on your troubles, making brownies, hugging you and shared in your grief. She was always able to call you when you needed to hear a reassuring voice, throwing you life line after life line when you were certain that you couldn't possibly go on. 

Well there are days now that I feel that I can't go on. She is gone, she is here. She remembers but forgets. She's asking more questions now about the things that she always knew. She wants to help, but doesn't know how. She is lost in her own town. The decades have merged, the people in her life have overlapped. Yesterday was a few days ago, this morning is a blur. Stroes are made up to fill in gaps in her memory to tray and reason. 

She looks lost in the grocery store, her pace has slowed. The word moves very fast for her now. Her tempo has slowed. 

Her heart still beats, her mind still works. She looks like my Mom. She sounds like my Mom. She hugs me like my Mom. 

She is my Mom then and now. I am her daughter. 

August 14th, 2021

Today is a good day. I think I figured out a secret about life with Alzheimer's. Mom loves certain things and those things bring her joy. Church, flowers, family, animals, farms and ducks. Nature and rocks. It is what she has been interested in and what has brought her comfort her entire life. When she is at the duckpond at Va. Tech, she is happy. She giggled today and I got it on video. She threw some dired corn out on the ground and 10-15 ducks ran after it. She smiled ear to ear and then giggled. Precious really. For her to connect with that quiet, calm, happy place inside of her was special to see. 

I used to take my Mam-Maw, her mother to the duck pond also. It was a place she too felt calm in her years with Alzheimer's. There isn't anything to confusing or scary there. Nothing to remember because its nature. It was Mom and Mam-maw's beginning as farm girls.

Mom and her sisters, brothers had their farm animals to connect with. There was not a t.v. or game systems to occupy their time. They had chores on the farm, around the house, school, church and family time, and more chores. :-) How simple and  precious that was. 

Now Mom has that same child like quality about her. She needs direction,  supervision, guidance. She is easily entertained with animals, trees, weather and rocks. She searched for a "special rock" at the Newport fair today to bring home. I think she is trying to have a grounding item, something that she believes she will look at and it will open a movie reel about what happened at that location and time she procured it. Here I thought she wanted one to put in her pocket. No, no! She wanted a very large, flat rock that was from the stream passing underneath the covered bridge. That rock will make it's way to my home one day along with the memory and date we wrote on the bottom of it. I took a picture of her standing under the bridge that day. She had fun at the Newport fair until she didn't. On a dime she became frustrated with the crowd, the sun, the continual parading of horses. She started making negative comments, which to anyone who knew my Mom prior to Alzheimer's, this was the sign to go home. I didn't feel the same joy she had in the beginning. I knew it was the last time she'd come here. I knew she would forget this day like so many others. 

She will always be with me. Her DNA made me. We'll never be apart. Her soul is clear and bright. Her heart is loving and kind. She is fragile though in my eyes. The secret is despite the struggles of dealing with Alzheimer's behaviors is that you can make it bearable at times by doing for them, making them happy, helping them find their joy. The joy may be just for a moment in time, but at that time, that moment you will feel the grief lessen. 

Oct 2nd, 2021

Mom may be going to an assisted living soon. English Meadows. It is in Blacksburg Va, right off 460 and super close, right across the street from the land that her family had a home on when the moved to Blacksburg from Floyd Va in 1958. 

I am nervous for her, like a parent worried about their child going to a new school. I know it is for the best. It still hurts though. My brain hurts. My brain is tired. My heart hurts. My heart is tired. 

7/17/2026:

Looking back at that time with Mom during her disease process, I am reminded that God will only give to you what you can handle. Those were the toughest days, months and years of my life. Watching my dear mother be lost in her mind, seeing her once strong body lose it's battle with time. 

I had asked Mom, how I was to feel that God allowed her to have Alzheimer's when she was such a faithful servant of his. When she told me that it was okay, because she accepted his plan for her life, I remember feeling shocked. That acceptance though is the faith that God's plan is perfect. Even in the ugliest days of Alzheimer's, God's plan to have my Mother live with Alzheimer's was just a part of her story. She prayed her way to the end, singing gospel songs, praying with her hand reaching towards heaven. She prayed for the doctors, the nurses and the cleaning ladies. Her worn bible was at the side of her chair, and even though her mind wasn't able to read it much at the end, she had her faith. God was with her. When it was time to take her home that Sunday morning, she was embraced by her maker and lifted into the heavenly realm. 

Her reward is that she isn't dead. Her body is gone, but she is alive in her spirit. She is with her creator. The seeds she sowed through prayers for others, especially the people she loves, the hugs, the gentle and sometimes not so gentle words she used to mother us, the example she gave as a loving person, the kindness she provided to strangers and those in need lives on. She influenced many to ponder the question, "is there a God?" I'd ask, "does it hurt to believe that there is?" 

Mom lived nearly 83 years. As much as I wanted her to live forever, I didn't want her to live with Alzheimer's. God gifted her with a quick end to a horrible disease process. She didn't have to be kept alive with feeding tubes, bed sores or a respirator. Her pain was managed; she had some quality time with her family. Her body needed less than a week to pass after she stopped talking to us, stopped opening her eyes. We stood watch, tending to every need that her body presented. 

As I said before, my sister and I had a brief glimpse and feel of the spiritual realm as Mom's spirit took flight. The room briefly filled with a sweet smell, a fullness of love, it got a little brighter and an electric charged spirit rushed through my sister's body as she stood at the foot of the bed touching Mom's feet. Gentle calmness came over my heart. The angels sent to comfort us through the grief were ever present. Guiding us, providing us with strength  in the days that followed. 

As hard as the years were following as I grieved my Mom's passing, I have grown in my spirit. God only gave me what I could handle. I am ten times stronger now. I also accept that God has a plan for my life. Whether it be Alzheimer's or something else, I am a part of this grand plan. God has already won.