Originally published in Hyde Park Life Spring 2009

By Mary Webb Walker, Caregiver Sanctuary Co-Leader

“Hey, lady! You’re puurdy.”

That was my cute little mountain mom’s greeting when Alzheimer’s sent names flying from her mind before they could stick.

She’d say it with a twinkle and a smile, except during her George Foreman period. And I’m not talking about her grilling days. Who knew this 90-pound southern charmer had such a lightning-quick left hook.

Fortunately, this personality aberration was relatively short-lived, thanks to a perfectly balanced Singapore Sling of really scary meds. Witnessing my Mom’s return to sweetness and light made me a reluctant, but staunch convert to the  wondrous power of the right drugs at the right time.

Medication, forgetfulness, personality changes – these are just the foothills leading up that daunting Mount Dementia. A mountain fraught with challenges that face people who care for someone whose memory has gone walk-about, cavorting with kangaroos in some barren stretch of the Outback. Mount Dementia – it’s full of safety challenges, confusing living facility trails, slippery slopes of fear and frustration, rock-sliding finances and reduced oxygen from exhaustion and the disappearance of one’s own daily life.

To friends who haven’t been there, it’s a nightmare they don’t want to contemplate, an endless burden and extremely annoying inconvenience. But there’s a time in your life when you have to step up, and somehow, amazingly, I didn’t resent it. I even treasured the experience. I mean it when I say that I wouldn’t trade the opportunity to care for my Mom for all the truffles at Lindt. But how, you may ask, could those years have been some of the best of my life?

I got to know my wonderful mom, Kathryn Ellis, in totally different ways when it became clear that something was terribly wrong and we moved her from North Carolina to Tampa. I was staggered by her courage and ability to live in the moment. Okay, maybe she lived in her moments a bit too long, like when she’d say, for the 18th time, “Have we ordered yet?”

But her spunky spirit and her faith became my inspiration. She loved going to her new church. She could miraculously remember the names of her pastors at Hyde Park United Methodist, even though she joined at age 84 when her short-term memory was completely shot. She always felt comfortable here, and nobody ever said a word when she sang the old familiar hymns, offbeat and off-key, at the top of her lungs.

She never took herself or her disease too seriously. She kept her favorite saying posted where she could see it from her bed: “The secret to happiness is a great sense of humor and a bad memory.”

We would read out of her Corny Joke Book and howl. The same jokes the next day would be fresh to her and just as hilarious. When I learned to enter her world and stopped desperately trying to keep her in mine, things got easier for both of us.

Mom passed away in the fall of 2007, still spunky and still recognizing family and friends. Memories of her are sweet and sustaining. I picture her dancing in Heaven, free from confusion, and savoring a daily diet of all-you-can-eat crab legs.

Originally published in Hyde Park Life Spring 2009.   |    See archive.