No one prepares you for the different emotions a child will feel watching their parent ….go through? Battle? Live with? Die with? I have no idea which phrase to use. All I know is, it’s certainly not survive.
Whilst many family members struggle and deal with Alzheimer’s on a daily basis, I don’t. Not on a physical level anyway. Not because I don’t want to, but for the simple fact of location, a trivial thing of an ocean and a few thousand miles get in the way. Some may say I’m lucky , some may say I’ve escaped the pain and responsibility.
These ‘some’ are stupid.
The pain is there, wether I’m next door or in another continent. I’ve lost my mum, I lose more and more of her each day. Each day she does or says something so out of character or declines that little bit more in some obscure way… poof… Another chunk gone.
Each day I hear the sadness and heartbreak and frustration of my amazing step Dad who is witnessing the loss of his best friend and what can I do except listen to him and try and support him that way, which is no way at all as how does that help? Especially since my mum has turned into Hudini and become the greatest escape artist of all time 🤦🏼♀️ No joke, my step Dad blinks and she’s out a door, down the road and getting her back is like he’s actually trying to kill her and throw her back in a dark dungeon of snakes somewhere !
Mostly my Step Dad puts humour to all the escapades my mum puts him through which is totally off the scale amazing. but I can see the worse she gets, the more it’s taking it’s toll on him, and that hurts more than my mum having Alzheimer’s .
What else can I do? Can I look after my mum so he gets a break? No. Can I spend cherished moments with my mum so I get more memories? Eeer no! Can I care for my mum like she deserves , the way she cared for me when I couldn’t do anything, Nope? So How is any of this pain free? .
My Dad died when I was 19, life as I knew it, gone, shattered, but it happened and it was done and we dealt with it. This is so much harder.
My mum was the most pristine, glamorous woman you could ever meet. I have been , by far, her biggest disappoint to date, and that’s including my ex communicated wayward brother! She never not had her nails done or her lipstick on… Infact they are the only two things she stills tries to do now… getting it a little mixed up at times, nail varnish on her lips and lipstick on her nails but hey!
She always moaned at me , constantly,
Ev, you look pale, have you not got blusher on?
Ooh no Ev that lipstick does nothing for you! …. Mum, I haven’t got any on!
Well that’s why, go put some lipstick on you look dead!
Nice, thanks mum. Well if I could get her back, now would be an ideal time…. But ok, that would be mean!! 🤣
The other day mum was sad and crying because all her kids had died. That breaks my heart to know how she must be hurting so much…but hold up… Dion got hit by a meteor… what? Where the fuck did she pull that one from? I still don’t know how I died, I mean, is this a premonition? Does she suddenly have alzhemic super powers. She talks to dead people all day long, she sees people and animals constantly and gets pissed as hell if you can’t see them too. The fights she has with my step Dad over ‘people’ and let’s not forget her dogs. God forbid she can’t find them. I even go looking for them when I’m there and tell her they are asleep.
She’s constantly looking for ‘Eva’ too. I’m such an arsehole, I’m never there. She’s always arguing with me. Once I was on the phone to her and she popped the phone in her bag but could still here me. That was fun, we went on a ‘walk’ together whilst she was trying to find me but getting more and more angry as obviously I was in her bag! Eventually I told her I was in the toilet and I’ll be there in a minute. 🤦🏼♀️ And had to hang up.
She tries to recognise us on FaceTime but it gets harder and harder. The utter confusion as to why the fuck we are in a tiny square object talking to her is beyond her comprehension now. … that’s why she often tells us to shut up or puts us away in one of her many handbags.
Once, a while ago she asked me how the kids were and for all of 3.5 seconds my heart warmed and I wanted to spill out the last 6 years of info and memories about my kids to share it with her … but then it was gone. How fucking cruel is that?
It’s like having a mum, then not having a mum, having a mum, then not having a mum, occasionally having a total stranger, then a stranger, then a total stranger again. It sucks.
Now covid is over me and my brother will try and keep up the 3 monthly alternating visits , more for my step dad but I know it all just exhausts him now, even our visits . It mostly sucks for him, all the time, every second of every day of every week. No rest bite just heart ache and mind numbing bullshit. No family near enough to pop in daily, just utter bullshit for him.
The worse thing is, my mum would hate who she is today, It was her biggest fear in life. I saw that dark sadness in her eyes years ago when she couldn’t remember her words, that look will haunt me forever.
This has now become mine and my brothers biggest fear. We joke about it, all the time, but I don’t want my kids to feel how I feel, I don’t Wife to feel how Doug feels, but really, tough shit for her as she married me for better or for worse… sucked in!!!
Me and my brother can be the two crazies together, not knowing who the fuck the other one is. The wife can put us both in a home as long as she visits weekly with kebab and wine…. Coke for the bro!
As I see it. We all have pockets of happiness, little windows , even when things are bad, they could actually get so much worse.
If you can pull out a tiny positive from each day, then we need to smile. Smile before the dark cloud of doom bites us in the arse again because it will. It’s what we make of our time in between the dark patches that count. Don’t waste it.
Alzheimer’s, the thief of a persons being, their essence, their souls, their dignity, the destroyer of hearts.
Fuck I miss my Mum
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