Coming Up for Air
I knew I hadn't written y'all in a while - I didn't realize it was a month. Sorry. June is kinda a tough month for me. Dad died June 27, 2004. This year with Father's Day coming after Mother's Day and it being 10 years since Dad's been gone was a little too much for me. I needed to do some fun stuff for me, not think about Alzheimer's, death, grief and loss. Kinda funny, considering I am Outreach Coordinator for a documentary about Alzheimer's. But giving myself distance from Mom gave me altitude and objectivity to do my work. And helped shift my grief.
My dad was a poet, a painter, a dancer, a spiritual man, an artist. His day job was a construction electrician. He loved his wife, family and life with his whole heart. In hindsight, it was not surprising Mom's symptoms got worse after his death. Totally not surprising she hallucinated him. He was her life and she his. Don't get me wrong, she loved her friends and family. Totally, completely. She would say to me she was filling time, filling her day with things to do.
Alzheimer's is a nasty, nasty disease. Robs a person of their identity - ability to take care of finances, drive, express themselves in the way they want. Words are harder to find, faces seem familiar - but can't always place names or relationship, walking even becomes a challenge. Can't walk as fast and now wobbly - when did that happen? Not the way my mom thought her remaining years on this earth would be. She was sure she would be running to her favorite nursery - buying and planting a variety of flowers. Going to her fabric store and sewing blankets for AIDs babies, or making clothes for indigent moms. Running off to the grocery store anytime she wanted - not having her eldest daughter help her grocery shop. Driving to see her best friend on their standing Thursday date.
When I have found myself angry recently, it's not that Mom's gone. It's Alzheimer's - dementia. Whatever flavor she had. We are not sure, as we were unable to have an autopsy performed, as she died in the midst of the Polar Vortex on a Thursday - and we needed to have the death certificate to have an autopsy. But the polar vortex stood in the way of getting a death certificate until that Monday. And by Michigan law, once a body arrives at a funeral parlor, they have to embalm or cremate within 48 hours. So...we have to go by what the doctors said - dementia with Alzheimer's.
I'm angry that we had to sell her home without her knowing, that the disease took pieces of her. And as soon as I start to get angry, I can hear her voice telling me it's ok. It's ok to be angry, but when I'm done, to remember the good times, the laughter, the love. Even as I'm writing this, listening to my French Cafe Radio station on Pandora, Mama Cass comes on singing Dream A Little Dream of Me - Mom's favorite song by Cass Elliot. I sure miss her, but don't miss the disease.
Back at ya Voyageur.
My dad was a poet, a painter, a dancer, a spiritual man, an artist. His day job was a construction electrician. He loved his wife, family and life with his whole heart. In hindsight, it was not surprising Mom's symptoms got worse after his death. Totally not surprising she hallucinated him. He was her life and she his. Don't get me wrong, she loved her friends and family. Totally, completely. She would say to me she was filling time, filling her day with things to do.
Alzheimer's is a nasty, nasty disease. Robs a person of their identity - ability to take care of finances, drive, express themselves in the way they want. Words are harder to find, faces seem familiar - but can't always place names or relationship, walking even becomes a challenge. Can't walk as fast and now wobbly - when did that happen? Not the way my mom thought her remaining years on this earth would be. She was sure she would be running to her favorite nursery - buying and planting a variety of flowers. Going to her fabric store and sewing blankets for AIDs babies, or making clothes for indigent moms. Running off to the grocery store anytime she wanted - not having her eldest daughter help her grocery shop. Driving to see her best friend on their standing Thursday date.
When I have found myself angry recently, it's not that Mom's gone. It's Alzheimer's - dementia. Whatever flavor she had. We are not sure, as we were unable to have an autopsy performed, as she died in the midst of the Polar Vortex on a Thursday - and we needed to have the death certificate to have an autopsy. But the polar vortex stood in the way of getting a death certificate until that Monday. And by Michigan law, once a body arrives at a funeral parlor, they have to embalm or cremate within 48 hours. So...we have to go by what the doctors said - dementia with Alzheimer's.
I'm angry that we had to sell her home without her knowing, that the disease took pieces of her. And as soon as I start to get angry, I can hear her voice telling me it's ok. It's ok to be angry, but when I'm done, to remember the good times, the laughter, the love. Even as I'm writing this, listening to my French Cafe Radio station on Pandora, Mama Cass comes on singing Dream A Little Dream of Me - Mom's favorite song by Cass Elliot. I sure miss her, but don't miss the disease.
Back at ya Voyageur.