Damn it, Mother

Alzheimer’s results in a tragic ending for the people with the disease, and their slow degeneration takes a toll on everyone around them.  The daily strain of the disease wears away at previously solid nerves and once-patient demeanors, something my family has learned firsthand as my mother slowly loses her ability to reason and function on her own.

She begins thinking that the kitchen towels should be folded and placed on the burners of the stove.  When I hang them out of the way on the oven handle, they are soon back, sitting on the burners, even if the stove is hot.

My mother also begins to believe that any food is okay for her consumption.  She drinks out of any cup containing liquid, and I’ve caught her snatching potato chips from other plates at the table (including my aunt’s at Easter). 

When we are watching television or sitting on the deck watching birds and squirrels at the feeders, if she doesn’t see my father, she asks if he’s okay.  I assure her that he’s fine, and she asks again three minutes later.  And three minutes after that. 

And three minutes after that. 

And three minutes after that.  She finally wears me down enough that we go looking for him so she can see for herself.  Once she sees him toiling away on a project at his workbench or rummaging around in the shed, she nods and points but doesn’t say anything to him. As soon as we start a new project or go back to the deck, her questions about him begin again.

As we make dinner, I pour two glasses of juice and hand one to my mother.  I set the other on the counter and begin chopping vegetables, pausing periodically to check the recipe.  I glance up long enough to see my mother sipping from one of the glasses.

“Mom!” I snip, abandoning the cutting board.  “That’s mine.”

She raises her eyebrows and almost drops the glass.  “I’m sorry,” she says softly.  “I didn’t know.”

I take a deep breath and try to mellow my tone.  “That’s okay.  Your glass is on the table,” I point at her drink and set mine back on the counter.

She nods, “Okay,” and steps away.

Thirty seconds later I look up from the recipe and again see her drinking from my glass. 

“Mom!” I say with more volume.  “That’s mine.”

Her eyes open wide.  “I’m sorry.”  She lowers her head in shame. “I didn’t know.”

About this same time, my mother begins standing books upright on the end tables in the living room.  She pulls out various novels, a bird guide, and a cookbook or two, and leans them against a table lamp or flower vase so they are upright and facing forward.  They don’t hurt anything, but for some reason it bothers me. 

As I walk into the living room from the hallway, the blue cover with a light sundress of Prayers for Sale stares back at me.  As I round the corner to the kitchen, my father’s copy of Birds of Nebraska faces out, propped against a page-a-day calendar of flowers.  I lay them down every time, and within minutes I will turn around and find them right back in their previous positions.

Almost everything seems to take twice as long to do when my mother is around.  We’ve learned this as a family, and, as a group possibly genetically predisposed to short-temperedness, we have had to learn infinite patience.

My mother tries very hard to help with chores, but this gets harder and harder as the disease progresses.  Once she becomes unable to wash dishes by herself (and too afraid of the dishwasher), she finds other ways to help around the house.  On weekends, we pull out two brooms and sweep the wood floor of the kitchen and hallway. When I pause to see how she’s doing, I catch her sweeping her dust pile into the laundry room and completely ignoring the dust pan.

“Mom!” I snap, “don’t do that!”

She shrugs and holds up her hands defensively.  “Ok, ok,” she says, responding the same way for seven weeks in a row.

Within a year, she loses her ability to know how to work a standard broom, so I hand her the dustpan and tell her I will need her help in a minute.  She follows me around the room so closely that every time I pull the broom a new direction, the handle runs into her.  I tell her to move back, and as we circle the kitchen table, she walks through the dust pile I’ve amassed.

I instruct her for the third time to stand by the trashcan outside the laundry room with her dustpan ready.  When I finally make it over there, pushing the refuse along the floor, I help her hold the pan and I sweep in the bits.

“Ok,” I say as we stand up, “throw it in the garbage.”  I point to the open bin, but she furrows her brow, then moves the pan in the opposite direction and spills its contents on the floor of the laundry room.

Sometimes things seem too much to handle. especially when every time I turn around those books are standing up, or my mother is picking rocks or dirt off the ground and putting it on the table, or she drops her cottage cheese or corn on the floor and puts it in her mouth, or she walks outside looking for my father and leaves the sliding door wide open.  These things on their own are manageable, but they tend to build up until I just want to explode from frustration.  I want to yell obscenities and kick inanimate objects until I wear myself out.  I want to do these things until they take my mother’s Alzheimer’s away.

As much as I want to yell DAMN IT MOTHER, I don’t, because as soon as my mother sees the words building inside me, her face changes to shame.  Shame because, even though she probably doesn’t know what’s wrong, she seems to have a feeling that she is the cause. 

And this shame changes my frustration to anger.  This anger is not directed at my mother—this would be too easy, and too unfair—but at the disease. 

Before I act out in a way that I will regret, I clench my fists so tightly my fingernails dig ruts into my palms, and I growl at the refrigerator.  I whisper one string of profanities after another, venting the rage I feel every time I remember that my mother will forget her family and never know her grandchildren or sons-in-laws; or realize that my father will never be able to retire with her looming medical expenses; or witness the dignity that has been taken from her as she can no longer bathe, dress, or use the bathroom by herself.  I loathe what Alzheimer’s has done to my mother, to our family, and I hate how it destroys lives so utterly and completely, and that there is nothing I can do to stop it.  And I know that no matter how much swearing ensues, this isn’t a situation my family can walk away from.  My mother can’t take a break from the disease and neither can we.

My mother watches from a distance, unsure how to handle the situation.  When I finally glance at her, I catch flashes of fear in her eyes.  I exhale slowly, and in my calmest voice prompt, “Come on Mom, let’s go for a walk,” though my fists are still clenched.

To this, she smiles, but I am suddenly tired. I take a seat at the kitchen table.  Perhaps thinking that things are back to normal, my mother joins me, grabbing her glass and tilting it my directing.

“Good,” she asserts, trying to convince me with her eyes.

My anger and frustration subside, leaving the unspeakable sadness that has been pooling inside me the whole time.  In these quiet moments, I realize, again and again, that no amount of swearing, growling, chair-kicking, chocolate eating, or laughing will ever remove this sorrow.