Mom with Alzheimer's Disease

Me and Mom

One of my most challenging times was caring for a parent with Alzheimer's.  At the time, my mother was living in a large retirement community with my step-father who did not seem to understand what was happening to mom in spite of repeated attempts to explain to him the specifics of her illness. All he knew was that his Betty was not the same woman he had married.  And she wasn't.

When I arrived at their doorstep one morning to help shower and dress mother, who in her earlier years had been a very proper woman, I found her wandering around the living room munching on a pretzel with nothing on but her undies.  My step-father was in the other room at the computer, absorbed in his email.  As soon as I arrived on the scene he darted out the door to breakfast down in the dinning room with his friends. 

I would strip the bed linens, throw a load of laundry in the washing machine, make mother breakfast, and help her bathe and dress. It was exhausting work at times, yet even in the moments of exhaustion, there were pockets of pure joy and delight in being with mother who in some ways had reverted back to the innocence of childhood.  She would ooh! and ahh! at the fresh berries I put in her oatmeal, and when my step-father returned from his breakfast in the dinning room with the cup of coffee we had instructed him to bring mother, the cup would be half empty with hot liquid dripping down the sides of the Styrofoam cup.  Mother would wink at me and roll her eyes and we'd giggle to ourselves, thanking him for remembering to bring the coffee.