Sometimes there are large billboards on the side of the road that seem to scream out at you as you drive by. I felt I was passing one this past Friday when we visited Mom for her birthday. “ALZHEIMER’S SUCKS! IT WILL STEAL YOUR TIME.” That’s what was written on my private billboard. Sadly, Mom has no sense of what it means to have a birthday. None of the anticipation of growing older, maturing or receiving presents that kids feel, or, sometimes, even us middle-aged adults exp

“Mom has been very belligerent this morning,” Daddy told me on the phone. I was on the last leg of my journey to their apartment, having boarded the shared taxi from Tel Aviv to Netanya. “She’s been shouting and yelling. She pushed me out of the bathroom and swore at me and called me a ‘dirty old man.’ Then she refused my help getting dressed. I wanted you to know.” I was still about forty-five minutes away, so there was not much I could do, but I did say hi to Mom on the pho

Mom has stopped meeting her friends for coffee on Friday mornings. And she’s stopped going to synagogue on Shabbat. Wait. Let me rephrase that. We have decided that Mom can no longer meet her friends for coffee or attend synagogue. It makes my heart sad to even write that. These were two activities that Mom loved, that gave her life meaning and friendship and spiritual fulfillment and were a central part of her weekly routine for decades. The thing is, Mom is too distracted b

What a laugh we had today!! Mom’s sister Barbara is visiting from England, and whenever she’s around, the laughter is contagious. Even Mom was in good spirits. When I arrived, I met Mom, Daddy and Barbara at the doctor’s office. Daddy needed a letter from the doctor that stated that Mom’s Alzheimer’s is a permanent illness. This must be given to the court to process his guardianship of Mom. They’d been waiting for a while when I walked in, and we immediately fell to laughing