I thought I had reached the point of acceptance that I was losing my mom to Alzheimer’s. I’ve read the books, I’ve watched the videos, I’ve adjusted to the myriad changes. I understand that even though sometimes she doesn’t know me, I can still be her best friend.
But some days, when all the other life stressors are hitting on all the other cylinders, a simple task like putting up the groceries reminds me that she’s gone, and I am reduced to a blubbering pity pool.
As I’m hauling grocery bags in, I see that she’s already started taking items out of the bags on the table. I head to the pantry. She asks me where to put something, so I stop what I’m doing and redirect her, or take the item from her and put it where it goes.
I hand her a bag with just milk and butter in it. I tell her she can put those away (because she knows where they go), but it’s as if I had spoken to a ghost. She continues on, finding things that she doesn’t know what to do with, deciding that bread goes in the refrigerator. Redirect. Redirect.
I open the refrigerator in the utility room and cry. I just want my Mama back. I want to be able to perform a simple task together without being reminded that she’s here but not really here.
Forget about all the things that I wish I could talk to her about… as I was able to do just a couple months ago. Forget about the fact that she remembers my brother, but thinks I’m some distant relative who happens to know some of the same people she knows. Forget about the fact that she would never, ever in a million years want to cause this kind of anguish and frustration.
Forget about the fact that I used to be precious to her, and now I’m a stranger…that my mother is gone, and yet she is here, putting bread in the refrigerator.
Forget about all of that. If only I could! If only I could choose to have my own limited dementia and forget that on top of all of the other stressors in my life right at this moment—the small frustrations and the frighteningly large and looming crises—my heart is breaking, and I can’t talk to my Mama about it.
I continue to put away the groceries, admonishing myself not to throw the bag of groceries on the floor in frustration, because there are bananas in it. Soft skinned, easily bruised. Handle them gently. And continue on.
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