The day program driver is delivering Dad home. I watch from the picture window as they round the corner toward our driveway. The car is still rolling as Dad unfastens his safety…
Many hours will pass before she arrives home, but already he is preparing. “What are you looking for Dad?” I ask, when I find him on his knees in the hallway rummaging through…
Back in May 2013, 3 years after my parents were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, my siblings and I decided to trial a month-long respite stay for both of them at a local memory care facility.…
I lay a gentle hand on her shoulder. It’s nearly 11 am and she’s still tucked under last night’s covers. “Momma,” I say, then I stroke the hair falling soft across her…
We pull up to the market, though I do not expect her to understand this. Any of this. That we have arrived somewhere – the grocery store. That such arriving implies something…
Before my father’s Alzheimer’s stole half his lifetime of memories, his favorite story to tell was about the day we met our beautiful Beleza. We had already picked out a name for…
The house is quiet but for the spring birds singing above the distant and continuous sigh of the highway. Momma’s bedroom door is ajar and I enter to find her lying so…
August 2015 When my parents were both diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease within 4 months of each other in 2010, it felt as if my siblings and I had been dropped in the…
This post was originally written for and read in its entirety before the NJ Alzheimer’s Disease Study Commission – a body of individuals charged with studying and making “projections about the future impact” of Alzheimer’s…
Momma is curled up on her side in the bed, still wearing the pink blouse Tracy dressed her in yesterday morning. There is a wide circle of chicken broth stained to her…
