Me And Mum

World Alzheimer’s Day – 21 September

Image credit: courtesy of digitalart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I hadn’t intended to post again so soon after my last post, but World Alzheimer’s Day today is too good an opportunity to say let’s support the people in our communities who live with Alzheimer’s. People who have the disease, people who support those with the disease, and people who are employed in working with both groups of people.

In writing about Alzheimer’s and my family’s journey it is really important to me that I don’t take advantage of my mother’s plight. She deserves her privacy, something which she has always held tightly to. She doesn’t deserve to be some kind of joke. The struggle she lives with is real, but she is also real. She has feelings. Part of my task in supporting her is to protect those feelings, even though she might not be able to express or even understand them.

This post comes from my own reactions to my mother’s illness. I have tried to write from a perspective of my journey, rather than my mother’s. I hope that in doing so, I have preserved at least some of Mum’s right to privacy.

It’s funny how things happen. I think I would be pretty much the last person my mother expected or even wanted, to be there for her as she traverses her last years – with Alzheimer’s Disease.

“The phrase ‘Love one another’ is so wise. By loving one another, we invest in each other and in ourselves. Perhaps someday, when we need someone to care for us, it may not come from the person we expect, but from the person we least expect… [ someone] whose love for us has assigned them to the honorable, yet dangerous position of caregiver.”

― Peggi Speers, The Inspired Caregiver: Finding Joy While Caring for Those You Love

Mum and I never got on. Not when I was a child and not for most of my adult life. It might seem harsh but the reality is that I think Mum and I tolerated each other for the sake of my (now late) father. I always got on great with Dad, but Mum didn’t appear to understand me and I didn’t understand her. I fully expected that when she was old, we would simply go our own ways.

My father died suddenly nearly six years ago. My parents had been temporarily living with me (after they lost their home in the Christchurch 2010/11 earthquakes). I remember the night after Dad’s funeral, I looked across the room at Mum and wondered how we would go from here. Mum hadn’t been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at that stage, but both Dad and I were clear that she was showing symptoms.

You see, Alzheimer’s runs in my family. My grandmother died of it, as did one of my uncles more recently. Earlier generations possibly bore it’s burden too. I have known it for most of my life, being only about ten when my grandmother was moved into residential care back in the late 1970’s.

Sadly, it’s something we have grown to expect. Mum never talked about this family heritage, but I’m sure she was probably quietly terrified. Frankly, I’m quietly terrified of it myself. But I’ll face that when I get there. My fear is not the focus for today.

It wasn’t long after Dad died that I got a very clear sense that he would want me to ‘be there’ for Mum. People have since told me “don’t be silly, he wouldn’t put that burden on you” but that’s not the way I saw it. To me, it was just one last thing I could do for him. I never stopped to see it as some type of burden. It was just the way it was going to be. Strangely, doing it for Mum never came into it back then. Supporting her would be definitely something I did for my father. Perhaps that’s just the way I needed to see it back then.

Mum was finally diagnosed about two years ago, but symptoms were obvious to those of us who were with her regularly, about six years earlier. And I’ve been learning ever since. I thought I knew the disease, but I really didn’t know anything until I learnt to live with it daily. There are new lessons each day.

Our relationship has changed enormously. It’s still not what I would call a typical close mother-daughter relationship. It never will be. Our relationship centres around her, and what she needs. My needs don’t really come into it. Some days that is really hard. Some days when I’m not well myself I want to scream “what about me?”. But mostly it’s okay. While Mum isn’t able to acknowledge it, I know that she needs me to prioritise her. This is her time now.

Mum needs me. She is living in a rest home, so yes, her basic needs are met. But I see her most days. I am clear that when I am not there, the staff take good care of her, but they are clear that Mum needs (and wants) my presence.

I’m the one that meets all Mum’s other needs. It might be the little things that no one would ever think of, or maybe bigger things like making decisions for her. I’m the one that notices the dirt on her shoes and stops to scrub it off just before taking her out to church. Maybe the dirt doesn’t matter, but it would have mattered to her… and so, now it matters to me.

Mum never appears to have any difficulty knowing who I am. She’s never once hesitated over my name and has no problem telling anyone who will listen that I am her daughter. That said, there are times when it’s quite clear to me that she is talking to me thinking I am my father. Other times I am a mystery third person, who she was eventually able to reveal to me was her sister (she never had a sister!).

I know that Mum has a great deal of difficulty knowing who most other people are. She’s confusing names or having to ask me who someone is. I admit that I try to keep the family names alive in her mind. I talk about my brothers (by name), about her grandchildren (again by name). I talk about my father because I can’t bear to think that she might forget the man she was married to for 53 years.

Maybe I do all of that for my own sake. Maybe I make decisions for her in such a way that will save me from having to see her suffer. I don’t know if it’s that I don’t want her to suffer, or that I can’t bear her suffering. Does that make sense? The two things are different to me.

Alzheimer’s Disease is a terribly cruel illness. I’m not the first person to write that. I see it’s cruelty daily as it robs little pieces of my mother.

I see the pictures in many Alzheimer’s publications of two brains side-by-side. On the left is a ‘normal’ brain and on the right is the smaller ‘Alzheimer’s’ brain. I wonder what my mother’s brain looks like now. How much has it shrunk? And for how long it can go on as it is? I don’t know.

The future of the journey which Mum and I are on is unknown. There is so much that is unknown. Each day, I don’t know what it will contain. Even though I already see my mother struggle so much, I know the struggle will only get worse. It’s just a matter of time. Will it be today? Or some time ahead?

What I do know, is that I have a remarkable opportunity to serve a woman, my mother, in her final days. What an honour. Seriously. I never thought I would say that, but Mum’s willingness to let me be there for her is a gift.

I read that “being a mother is about protecting your children from every conceivable thing that might cause them hurt”. I’m not a mother myself but I now see my role as protecting my mother from everything that might cause her hurt. Sometimes I can achieve that but sometimes I can’t. At least I can try.

By choosing to look at our journey in these ways makes it bearable for me. I dearly hope that I am somehow making it bearable for Mum.

Thanks for reading

Cate