It has been one year since my mom was moved to her Alzheimer’s care facility, one year of searing emotional upheavals and adjusting to a new reality. If I think back to last year, I remember the utter pain and sadness I felt at moving Mom. I cried in an intense primeval howl as I imagined Mom in her new surroundings frightened and bewildered without us. I felt extreme guilt at having abandoned her, as if we had given up our job of protecting her in the world. The transition w

Let’s get this straight. I do not want your pity. I don’t want you to commiserate on how difficult it must be, this Alzheimer’s, this dealing with the slow disintegration of my beloved mom. I already know it’s difficult. And you do, too. Please don't dwell on those dark and obvious challenges. And I will try not to pity you over the burden you carry, whatever it may be. We all carry some hardship that shadows all we do in our lives. The key is to acknowledge it, to openly tal

“These stairs are getting slower and slower,” Mom comments as we walk down the three flights to the street. I laugh at her expressive way of telling me she's moving slowly. I am like an anthropologist discovering the true meaning of her words. When we walk past a kitchen wares store, Mom says, “I remember the first time we went to look for frying pans together.” I decide she's telling me that she enjoys my company. Mom is using her words to suggest that she has a connection t

I’m not going to remind Mom that her father’s yartzeit, the anniversary of his death, is coming up. He died 17 years ago just before the holiday of Shavuot, the Jewish holiday that commemorates the giving of the Torah, which starts this Saturday night. In fact, the timing of his death was such that the shiva, the traditional seven-day mourning period, was cut to just one day. Mom’s sense of time has collapsed. She remembers her childhood. She remembers her father. She knows s

Every time I tell Mom I can’t visit this week because of Shavuot, the Jewish holiday that commemorates the giving of the Torah, Mom starts talking about Sukkot, the holiday of booths that is celebrated in the fall. I don’t know what the connection is, other than the sound of the holidays’ names. “We used to build a sukkah on our balcony,” Mom tells me. I wonder where she is in time. Certainly not since their move to Israel almost 20 years ago have they constructed a sukkah. A