When you have an elderly parent with dementia, you know at some point they will forget you. But that doesn't make it any less shocking when it happens.
I always gear myself up before I call my mom. I know what the conversation will be, with very little variation. She always says how happy she is to hear from me; she aways thinks we haven’t spoken in so long, as if it’s been years. She’ll complain about her assisted living, about how no one comes to visit her (which is untrue; she just doesn’t remember), she’ll tell me how fat she’s gotten (this one is true, unfortunately), how much she misses my dad. Until recently, she would ask me how “my son” was, as she’d forgotten his name. But lately, she hasn’t brought him up at all.
She would always tell me, “I’m looking at this photo I have of the six of us…” and yes, I knew what photo she was talking about. It was taken when I was a senior in high school – you can tell by all the terrible late 80’s hair and clothes. All of us – my siblings and I – hate that picture, but she loves it and has a huge copy of it hanging on the wall. I think it reminds her of a time when her life was very full. Sure, the four of us kids were mostly pains in the rear - there were always too many people with too many differing opinions crowding about asking for money or food. But my dad and mom were still young and energetic enough to handle it. Things were not easy, but I can see how in retrospect she must miss all those vibrant signs of life.
I always start off my phone calls to her by saying, “Hi mom, it’s Jen,” because I worry at some point, she won’t recognize my voice. She sounded a little off this time, right off the bat. “Oh, hello,” she said, without the usual exuberance. She complained about being stuck there, about no one visiting her, and then she said something weird.
“You know my husband died. I really miss him.” She didn’t say, “I miss your dad,” as she usually did. Then she said, “I have this photo of the six of us – Bob and me, and our kids, Jody, Linda, Jordan and Julia.”
Jordan and Julia are my sister’s kids. She forgot both my brother and me.
I knew this was coming, of course, but it was still jarring to hear. I didn’t correct her, but instead found ways to bring up my brother by name, and even myself. She seemed to bounce back a little bit, and signed off our conversation with her usual, “Well I better let you go. I know this is long-distance and must be costing you a fortune.”
When I told my sister about it later, she admitted that my mom had asked her a few days before “what’s the name of my youngest daughter again?” Even though with Alzheimer’s this is the expected course, it’s still shocking when it happens.
My relationship with my mother has always been complicated at best, so I’m not suffering this loss in the way I might if we had had a healthy relationship, but even the loss of a tricky mother-daughter bond is still something to process.
And, yes, she isn’t gone yet. But she is whittling away piece by piece, and she’s heading in one direction only. So, let’s be honest about it – we will never have a real conversation again. She will remember me, and then she will forget me, and then remember me again until she forgets who I am completely.
Alzheimer’s is a disease I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. It is such a thief, and in its early stages it causes the sufferer so much anxiety and fear. The fact that my mom is beginning to forget her own children is, I truly hope, a sign that the disease is progressing out of the middle stage where she has been cruelly cognizant of her memory’s decline. I hope she is entering a phase where she can’t remember enough to be afraid anymore.
To those of you, like me, who have complicated relationships with your parents and are watching their decline as they age, let this be your reminder that there is no roadmap, there is no way to really anticipate how you’ll feel. As you lose your folks, whether bit by bit or all at once, expect the unexpected when it comes to how you react. And know that however you feel, it’s never wrong, and in fact, you’re entitled to it.
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