We moved my Dad to memory care this week. So much stuff happened between the decision and the move! Even though my daily life is not affected as much as my mothers, I feel a new type of loss at this stage. I was unprepared for it.
With Alzheimer’s disease, I find, there are layers of loss experienced. There is the slow loss as the person you love loses pieces of who they are, one by one, and you adjust in increments so small they are barely perceptible until one day you realize how much has changed. That is manageable. There is the anticipated loss, you know this disease is terminal, but you manage that grief in a way that allows you to be present for the loved one, the other family members, and your own commitments in life, so you don’t lose the gift of NOW. What I was not prepared for and am talking with God every day about, is the gut punch of putting this beautiful, wonderful person we love into the care and trust of others. Hugging my mom as she sobs the first time she walks through the door of her apartment without her husband of the last 64 years. Going home to my own house, sitting in a chair, knocked breathless by my own pain, my siblings’ pain, Mom’s pain, and wishing I could take it all away, but knowing it must be lived through. Lastly, thinking of the first night in his “apartment” wondering what Dad can think and feel. Is he lonely? Is he scared? This larger than life father of mine who always took charge and took care of us. This now frail yet brave man who understood somehow this choice was for his and his beloved wife’s health and well being, who went without a fuss. Who kissed my mom and said “I’ll see you when I see you.” In his little apartment room, does he see the familiar things we put on the walls, the quilt my Mom made that was on their bed for years, the afghan his own mother knitted 50 years ago draped on his new recliner? Does he find comfort in those things, or does it even register? I can’t even ask him because he won’t understand the question. There are so many layers of grief in this journey. Until we can visit in person, I will continue to pray for, and, as a friend put it, also pray to my father, sending all of the love that I have from my heart to his.
The Writing Life of Kimberly Nash 