You can tell a lot about a person by how many long term friendships they have. I am always amazed, not only at how many friends Mitzi has been surrounded by in her life, but most especially by how many of those friendships have withstood the test of time. Right before Thanksgiving, lunch with one of her favorite friends was a highlight for her.
One of the “advantages” (if you’re looking at the bright side) of this disease is that most good news gets to be “news” more than once. So if we have something planned on Mitzi’s schedule, like a fun lunch or meetup with a friend, and Mitzi is down about something, I just randomly say, for example, “Oh, I can’t wait until Thursday!” She’ll always ask why, and then I get to tell her about whatever the fun thing is that’s planned. Occasionally, she will remember that it was already a plan, but be excited anyway. But most of the time, it’s “news” to her and she gets soooo excited! Then she’ll spend a good 5 minutes or so doing Q&A with me to make sure she’s got most of the major details right about that person so she can remember to ask about their spouse, their kids, their pets, and a multitude of other tiny details that make her so special for wanting to remember them.
There was a video circulating a year or so ago and it was a compilation of clips of this woman with Alzheimer’s whose granddaughter keeps telling her she’s going to have a baby. And every time the woman gets overjoyed. Cries happy tears. It was the sweetest thing ever to watch this woman get to find out that she was going to be a great-grandmother over and over again, in different ways every time. It’s new every single time to her. Many of the comments under the video would only focus on how sad that was. How awful that she couldn’t remember she was going to have a new great-grandchild, etc. And, in terms of this ugly disease, it is sad. But for that woman, who lives only in the present and in the past world that the movie in her mind will let her live in, finding out over and over and over again this joyous news was probably the best part of her day. Every single time.
If you can get past the constant reality check that most short term memories don’t stick right, it’s almost a quirky little perk that Alzheimer’s Disease offers its host. The most important thing we, as friends and family can do to help those we love navigate this is to be present in the moment with them so we can celebrate the good stuff…as often as we can…????
