momsalzheimers

Throughout her life, my mom found great comfort in prayer. She prayed throughout the day, asking God for help with all of her problems.

When I had a problem as a teenager, she would recommend that I pray also. This did not sit well with me. I was struggling with my belief in God, and I wanted human help. When she told me to pray, I felt like she was passing the buck.

My mom also comforted herself with dreams of salvation in heaven, where she said everything would be peaceful and pleasant, and life would be eternal, as long as you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior.

This always seemed too simple and, frankly, wrong-headed to me.

“What if you’re a serial murderer?” I’d ask. “As long as you believe in Christ, you’re saved?”

“Yes,” she’d say. “But no one who believes in Christ would be a murderer.”

Hmmm.

“What if you’re not a Christian?” I’d ask. “You won’t be saved, even if you’re a good person?”

“No,” she’d say. And then she’d look very sad.

By the time I reached my twenties, our conflict got more intense. This caused her great distress.

“I guess I won’t be seeing you in heaven,” she’d say. And then she’d cry.

Eventually, I stopped raising the issue, but she would bring it up again and again. So I finally gave in to head off this avenue of discussion.

“Of course I accept Jesus Christ as my savior,” I’d say. “And I’ll see you in heaven.”

This seemed to satisfy her, and she’d let the subject drop.

But these days, Alzheimer’s is changing everything. My mom is losing track of God, and I’m trying to help her pick up the traces.

“Did you pray today?” I ask when she’s crying on the other end of the telephone, and nothing I say can help her.

“I forgot,” she sometimes says. Other times, she says, “I can’t pray.”

“Then let’s pray together,” I say. And I go from daughter to pastor, prayer partner, spiritual advisor, as we invoke God over the telephone lines. I ask God to be with my mom, to comfort her, to let her know she’s not alone. It seems to give her some relief, but she can’t do it on her own.

And when my mom talks about death these days, it’s not about everlasting life in heaven.

“I’m going to die soon,” she says, “and I’m scared.”

“Why are you scared?” I ask.

“I don’t want to be alone,” she says.

“You won’t be alone,” I say. “You’ll be in heaven, and you’ll see your family.”

“I will?” she asks, as if she’d never spent all those decades dreaming of heaven.

“Yes,” I say. She accepts it, but she seems to have doubts.

I never thought my mom would forget about heaven. And that I’d be the one reminding her.

Two bombs at the Boston Marathon. Two people dead. Over 100 injured.

“That’s terrible,” my mom says after I tell her.

“It is,” I say.

“I want to tell Phyllis,”* she says. “Hold on.”

Three minutes later, she’s back on the phone.

“I couldn’t remember what I wanted to tell her.”

It’s 15 feet from the couch to Phyllis’s bed. Probably less, and my mom moves fairly quickly. Fifteen feet erases the facts from her mind.

“Oh mom,” I say, and repeat what I first told her.

“Okay,” she says, and sets off again.

Two minutes later, she’s back.

“I couldn’t remember it all,” she says. “Something happened in Boston, and two people died. That’s what I told her.”

“The Boston Marathon,” I say. “A bomb. Over a hundred were injured.”

She sighs. “I really want her to know,” she says. “Hold on.”

My mom has been living with Phyllis for 18 months, when they both moved into the assisted living facility. It’s been going extremely well. Phyllis has the mind and can remind my mom where she needs to go. My mom has the body and can help Phyllis with tasks like making tea and putting her clothes into the hamper. It’s a marriage made in heaven.

But the marriage hasn’t stood the test of time.

I got a call last week from the facility that my mom will be moving out. Phyllis is demanding too much and doing it too forcefully, and my mom can’t say no. They say that Phyllis is bullying my mom.

This makes me sad because I feel for Phyllis. She’s old and in pain, and she can’t do much for herself. She’s also depressed and sick of life. And she’s living with someone who has Alzheimer’s Disease, which can try the patience of anyone.

But I don’t want her mistreating my mom, whatever the reasons, so of course my mom will move, with my blessing.

Still, it makes me sad how old age and illness are wearing away at them both, how they can erase people’s memories or turn them into bullies.

*Phyllis is a pseudonym for my mom’s roommate. I didn’t want to use her real name.

My mom used to love puzzles. She would sit for hours at a card table, putting 500 pieces together to make a picture. She got tremendous joy out of completing a puzzle.

But Alzheimer’s took that away from her. It got so she could no longer finish a puzzle because she’d force pieces where they didn’t belong and then wonder why the remaining pieces didn’t fit. All of her puzzles had holes on them.

“This puzzle doesn’t work,” she’d say.

Soon she could barely fit five pieces together after emptying an entire box onto the table.

So she stopped opening the boxes and she gave up on puzzles.

“I can’t do them anymore, ” she said.

But I’m realizing that puzzles are still a big part of her life, whether she realizes it or not.

Every time I talk to my mom, Alzheimer’s turns whatever I say into a puzzle and spreads the pieces onto her brain like it’s a card table. And I watch her pick up the pieces, struggling to fit them together into something that makes sense. But she never seems to get the full picture.

“Who is your father? Did you say his name was Bill? Isn’t he my brother? Did I marry my brother? Didn’t he die? Who is Bill? I thought he was my brother? He’s married to someone else? But I thought my brother died? I’m so confused….”

No matter how hard she tries, she can’t put the pieces together.

No wonder my mom stopped opening the boxes. She must be damn sick of puzzles.