Mitzi’s daughter has been home from college for the summer and has been a huge help in so many ways. She’s a phenomenal cook and learned early on to take over that job when her Mom couldn’t follow recipes any longer or be trusted to use the stove safely. Mitzi seems to eat more of what she cooks and I’m not sure if it’s because she knows who made it or just because everything she makes is so darn yummy!
I asked her permission to share my favorite Mitzi Moment of this week and she gave me the go-ahead. I never use Mitzi’s kids names and I don’t often write about them because I’ve tried to keep this mainly about my journey with Mitzi and her journey with Alzheimer’s. But I could write for weeks about the tremendous heartache Alzheimer’s leaves in its wake when it affects a mother and her younger kids. Mitzi’s daughter was about 9 and her son was 13 when the symptoms started noticeably showing up. Let that sink in…When most people think Alzheimer’s, they see a silver or white-haired senior sitting on a couch, perhaps watching The Price Is Right or Andy Griffith reruns. But this is the same insidious disease, wrapping its tentacles around the Mom with a minivan struggling to make a lunch to send with her daughter off to school. Unfathomable.
The snippets of intelligible words we hear from Mitzi are becoming fewer and farther between now. Sentences that contain a subject and a predicate are so rare that I actually often cheer when one unexpectedly erupts from Mitzi. It’s hard sometimes, especially because I used to often be able to tell what she was going to say in response to certain things. Alzheimer’s has a way of training you to expect to hear the same things over and over. So if you’re around someone often enough, you learn the cadence of their speech, favorite phrases, and how they’d respond to certain topics. Even now, when the words come out garbled and unidentifiable, I can sometimes tell by just the rhythm of how Mitzi says something what she was trying to say. I always joke that I’ve spent a lot of time digesting the Alzheimer’s Rosetta Stone language pack so that I could speak fluent Mitzese!
After lunch one day this week, when her eyelids were at half mast and I knew we only had minutes left in order to use the restroom before she’d be so tired I’d have to pick her up and put her in bed for her nap, I backed Mitzi’s wheelchair out from the table to head to her room. We back her most places because otherwise, going forward, her feet will get caught up on the floor and she could get hurt. We used to use the footrests, but she got to where she couldn’t keep her feet on them (we use these small luggage straps to loosely secure them to the foot rests if we go on a walk). Anyway, I was backing her out of the kitchen and I nonchalantly told her to tell her daughter (who was standing between the sink and the stove) that she’d see her after her nap. Mitzi leaned forward, reaching her hand towards her daughter and, with the most assurance I’ve heard her say anything in months, said, “I love you.”
The words hung in the air. Loud. Echoing. Tangible. Her daughter and I both looked at each other in amazement. I honestly cannot remember when the last time I’ve heard a genuine “I love you” come from this sweet woman who used to use that phrase all the time. It would roll off her tongue effortlessly to friends and family and would always come as a BOGO (buy one get one free) when she’d give you one of her signature Mitzi Hugs. But to hear this now. Especially when she was so tired and had been nearly falling asleep on the table. And for it to be directed straight to her daughter, making it absolutely undeniable that it was intended just for her…the weight of what I had just been privileged to see overwhelmed me completely. If there was a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie about Mitzi and her Alzheimer’s, this would be one of those scenes that the music would swell during and you’d end up in a puddle surrounded by tissues after. I always try to respect her daughter’s space, so, when I could finally choke out the words, I haltingly said, “Ummmm, I will just step right here into the dining room now and not even look if you possibly wanted to come hug your Mom at this moment. I won’t even touch my camera.” (Which, if you know me, is a HUGE thing for me to let an amazing moment just be and not need any photographic evidence!). I stepped into the dining room as she leaned down and hugged her Mom. For a long, sweet time.
I wish I could have seen Mitzi’s face. I know for those few precious moments, Alzheimer’s let down its guard and gifted the two of them that moment. For a disease that prides itself on stealing memories, that was an unforgettable moment even it can’t rob from me or her daughter. Those are the moments, in this stage of where we are, that you absolutely have to look for and live for…????
PSIt’s impossible for me to post something without a picture, and since I promised I wouldn’t take one (and kept that promise), and since I have told her I wouldn’t ever post a picture of her face, these photos of the two of them hugging at Easter in 2017 when her daughter was our resident bunny will just have to do!
