There’s this great children’s book called “If You Give a Pig a Pancake” and its sequel “If you Give a Mom a Muffin.” I used to read them to my kids. The gist of each story is that we start out doing one thing, then get side tracked multiple times, till we forgot what we originally intended to do. So the mom sits down with her muffin, and realizes she would like some coffee to go with it. When she goes to get the coffee, she notices a spill and decides to wipe up the counter. She takes the towel to the laundry room to wash it, and notices her kids’ shoes, which she returns to their room. While there….. you get the picture. Going round in circles. Forgetting the point of the conversation. To me this books describes the Alzheimer’s brain.
If I had to title the above picture of my mom, it would be called “Defiance!” It was taken at the culmination of a very long evening. I had to go to a meeting in Hudson, and my mom has some really good friends in Hudson. Since it's a 45 minute drive each way, we don’t get there often. But I decided it would be nice to go early, drop off my mom at her friend’s home, go to my meeting, go back and get her, and then head home. It would have been easier and quicker to go without her, but I knew she would enjoy visiting with her friend. While I was at the meeting, they went to dinner at Panera. When I picked mom up, she had her bag of left-overs, and when we got home she said “I want my cookie.” I gave it to her at the table, she started to eat it, and I went upstairs to change clothes. When I came back down, Lian said she had taken the cookie to her room, and she heard the dresser drawer open. My mom hides food. All the time. It’s a special kind of hoarding. So the rule, for the last month, has been that we only eat at the table. Prior to that, if she had food in her room she would throw wrappers under her chair, we constantly battled ants, she hides french fries in her drawer, saving them for when she’s hungry later, etc. So I went into moms’ room and asked her where she put her cookie. Really not sure why I was expecting an answer to that. Almost two years of living with Alzheimer’s and I still expect something that makes sense to come out of her mouth. Her response: “You took my cookie! I want it back!” No mom, I don’t have your cookie. Where did you put it? “I WANT MY COOKIE!!" Now if I had any other cookies in my house, I would have brought her one and she wouldn’t have known it wasn’t her cookie from Panera. The one time we are without a box of Oreo’s in the house. So I just told her we’d look for the cookie tomorrow, that it was time to get ready for bed. “I WANT MY COOKIE!” Ugh. I tried getting her ready for bed, and wanted to get the Depends’ on correctly, as she had them around her waist like a belt. “I know how to do it!” Well, clearly, you don’t. She refused to put on the Depends the correct way, and full disclosure here, I was quickly looking my patience and fussing at her. She then accused me of Elder Abuse – for trying to get her to wear the Depends. Things escalated from there. She told me I abused my sister her whole life (my sister, who had Downs Syndrome, died 4 years ago). I said “Mom, that was very unfair” and walked out in tears. Poor Lian is overhearing all this, and is a wreck herself and concerned about me. About ten minutes later, I hear mom in her room, laying in her bed shouting “I WANT MY COOKIE!”, like a two year old. Like a broken record. I laughed. A few minutes after that, she came into the tv room where Lian and I were sitting, sat down in defiance, folded her arms, and just stared straight ahead, unwilling to look at me. Defiance. I didn’t say a word to her. I let her sit for about 20 minutes, and then told her it was time for bed, and took her to her room.
Here is my struggle du jour: as always, the next morning mom didn’t remember about her cookie, or the hurtful things she said to me, but unfortunately I did. I let it consume my thoughts all evening, and into the night. The old adage “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me” is a big fat lie. Just ask any child who grows up with a parent telling them they are stupid and wont amount to anything, or an abused wife who is told she is ugly and no one will ever love her. Words can pierce the soul. My broken bone will eventually heal, but my wounded heart is a different story. Intellectually, I know my mom didn’t mean anything she said, but try to convince my heart of that….
By the way, we never found the cookie! It will turn up at some point, moldy, when we least expect it – that is, if the ants don’t beat us to it!
“I’ve come to the point where I’m not sure anymore just what God counts as radical. And I suspect that for me, getting up and doing the dishes when I’m short on sleep and patience is far more costly and necessitates more of a revolution in my heart than some of the more outwardly risky ways I’ve lived in the past. And so this is what I need now: the courage to face an ordinary day…without despair, the bravery it takes to believe that a small life is still a meaningful life, and the grace to know that even when I’ve done nothing that is powerful or bold or even interesting that the Lord notices me and is fond of me and that that is enough.”
~ Tish Harrison Warren
Comments