When I visited Mom this week, I wanted so badly to tell her about the new version of West Side Story. Under different circumstances, we’d have gone together to the theatre to see this new, bright, flamboyant version of this beloved musical. She would have loved it. As she taught me to. It reminded me again of all I have lost to this disease. Instead, I arrived with my high energy level to cajole her into smiling, singing, and laughing with me. And, it worked! We had a lovely

My mom is still here, diminished though she is, and I have the privilege of seeing her.

The difficulty of sorting through and parting with my mom's clothes.

When my dad is away, as he is this week, I try to visit my mom each day, even if only for a short while, so that I can verify with my own eyes that she’s ok. And, I post a photo of her to our family WhatsApp group so that they can see her, too. Mom was smiling today, and when I took her photo, she asked to see it. “Is that me?” she queried as she studied herself. I assured her it was. I’m guessing that Mom thinks of herself as much younger, certainly unlike the other resident

The holiday of Passover starts this week. But Alzheimer's sufferers will not recognize that Friday night will be different from all other nights. When I saw Mom today, I sang some of the Passover songs she’d taught us as kids. There’s the song about frogs jumping on Pharoah’s bed; she remembered that one. My favorite is a haunting melody to Ha lachma anya (which translates to, "This is the bread of affliction...") that she learned in her choir many years ago that we’ve incorp

I finally saw Mom today after three days of being sick. I had stayed away because I didn’t want her to catch my cold. I think of her as vulnerable: a cold would knock her out. My mood, like the last of the rainy winter weather, was down and dragging. When I walked into Mom’s home today, the staff was more excited to see me than she was. I’ve been there every day for the last two weeks, so my absence was noticeable. When I arrived, the residents were sitting in a circle kickin

“It’s my daughter, Miriam,” she said as I entered the ward. “Where were you?” How grateful I felt to be identified by Mom. I sat down in the seat that the nurse was vacating. She’d been feeding Mom her 10:00 snack—applesauce and milky coffee laced with a laxative—and Mom was eager to hug and kiss me. We spoke for a while as Mom told me about getting her hair coiffed; about the seven minutes that she’d waited (I’m not sure for what); how she’d gone shopping but couldn’t find t

Our lives have been topsy-turvy this past week. We had initial confirmation on Sunday that Mom could be moved into a closed Alzheimer’s ward on Tuesday. Can you imagine having a day and a half to wrap your head around the idea that life as you know it is about to change? We started packing, talking to Mom about going on a vacation, how she’d be staying at a nice hotel, our hearts bursting with grief, wondering who would take care of her and comfort her, persuade her to wash a

Ever since my dad found a chunk of Mom’s tooth on her pillow one morning, we’ve been trying to figure out how to get Mom dental care. She had refused to open her mouth in her Health Care dental clinic, and when we invited a dentist to their home through the Yad Sarah organization, she’d resisted that, too. No dentist, we were told, would work on Mom’s mouth without an x-ray, preferably a panoramic x-ray that captures the entire mouth in a single image. How, we wondered, would

“Oh, it’s my mommy,” she said as I entered her house this morning. I was not prepared for this—to be identified as her mom. On the other hand, I wasn’t shocked by it either. On any given day I might be her daughter, her friend, a school mate, a kind stranger. “Hi, Mom,” I countered. “It’s great to see you.” She gave me a big hug and we danced around the room for a while until she started looking for…something, this time by opening each of the small lacquered boxes that sit on

I washed Mom’s hair today. What a mess! For some reason, Mom, like many Alzheimer’s patients, does not enjoy bathing or showering. Perhaps it is the overwhelming number of tasks associated with morning rituals that someone with Alzheimer’s can no longer remember how to do or what order to proceed in. I imagine Mom has a blank space in her memory when she’s asked to wash. And not being able to do it herself undermines her sense of accomplishment and control when she realizes s

“You’re only fit for the gutter, you are,” she angrily spat at me. It hurts to hear her talk like that. I know my mom would never say that. But my Alzheimer’s mom says things like that all the time. And in that instance, that other mom hated me. Why? Because I had tried to guide her to a bench to sit while we waited for my dad to pick us up. It is ironic that I’m using Mom’s designations—the other Jack, the other Miriam—to describe how I feel about her. The truth is, Daddy an

There is always a certain risk involved in taking Mom to the mall. She may not be able to shed her angry morning voice, she may run determinedly away, or she may become overly tired and refuse to move. Thankfully, today Mom and I had a wonderful outing. We gaily sang our way on the 15 minute walk to the mall, then went shopping in the grocery store. It took more than an hour to shop and make arrangements for the delivery; and though Mom was nonplused some of the time, I kept

I think we should amend the idiom based on Psalm 8 to read, “Out of the mouth of babes—and Alzheimer’s sufferers—comes wisdom.” With Mom perhaps it’s not exactly wisdom per se but rather observations straight from her altered reality. She uses her limited language and memory resources to convey a message. Her statements offer clues as to how I can reach her and hint at how she is feeling. Here are two examples from today’s visit. When we were eating lunch, Mom kept taking off

There are boxes stacked neatly in my parents’ apartment, evidence that they are truly going through with their move in two months to Beer Sheva. There’s so much left to pack—a life’s collection—that I suggested that my dad start early and work in short shifts. And with another heat wave gripping Israel, today during my visit, we decided to stay inside and clear out some of the cupboards. Our rule of thumb: if an item hasn’t been used in more than a year, it should probably no

First the sickening sound of the impact, then the jolt as our heads snapped forward and back. Then Mom’s hysterical wailing. It took me a few seconds to realize that Daddy’s car had been hit from behind. My immediate assessment from the back seat was that we were all ok, shocked, shaken, but all in one piece. We moved to the side of the road, the offending car following us to gauge the damage. As Daddy stepped out of the car, Mom’s wail became more insistent. “Where is he goi

I've been playing brain games on my smart phone, mainly to keep myself occupied while I'm traveling. They are so easy to download. I especially like Lumosity, and various word search games that people have suggested. It turns out that these types of games are recommended as a way to keep your mind supple and fend off Alzheimer's. The Alzheimer's Research and Prevention Foundation discusses "four pillars of prevention:" diet and supplements, including reduced fat and foods hig

When a fuse blew in my parent's apartment, at first my dad couldn't find the source of the incident. It seemed localized to their bedroom, so he started turning off and on all the lights. He discovered that Mom's bed-side light wasn't working. When he examined the lamp, he noticed that the cord had been cut. Because if you can't turn off the light at its source, the next best idea is to take metal scissors from the kitchen, cut the cord, then put the scissors back in their pl

It is fitting that when our kids were small, my mom used to call herself “Savtarella,” the Hebrew equivalent of Grandma-ella, after that most famous of down-trodden young women, Cinderella. When she visited, Mom would rush into our house, get down on the floor and play with her grandkids, give them baths, read them stories, then, with her left-over energy, clean the house when they’d gone to sleep. It was our little joke about all she would do for us. These days, I’ve noticed

How is it that poetry can stir such strong memories? I accompanied my mom to her monthly poetry class where they read and discuss poems on a specific topic—this month, work and occupations—with sources from the Torah, medieval Jewish poetry, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Walt Whitman, D.H. Lawrence, Seamus Heaney, Philip Larkin, and Philip Levine, among others. It was clear from the British participants, as opposed to the Americans in the room, that a greater emphasis was placed on