Today, September 21, is World Alzheimer’s Day. My mother has Alzheimer’s, I have written about her before on this blog. In a matter of just a few years I have lost one of my best friends to this disease. I used to talk with Mom all the time about my life, about her life, about our lives. She, along with Luke, has been one of the major supporters of my writing career and my dreams. She, along with my sister and brother, flew out to LA for the book launch of Dancing on the Cellar Door in 2003. And what a trip it was. My big old antique Lincoln Town Car blew up on the way back from LA to San Diego! But we all survived it, with laughter and love. Was she a perfect mom? No, who could be a perfect mom? I am not a perfect son. But she was as close as you can come. I miss her so much. I visited her in the spring and she knew me. That is no longer true, just six months later. I think she recognizes my voice on the phone but she can’t get her mind to form the words “David.” And she’s young, that’s the thing - she turned 76 this past July. Looking back, though, there were little things I didn’t think much of at the time but that now I recognize as being the beginnings of Alzheimer’s. She knew it was happening to her, too. In a way she made plans for what she knew was coming, she remarried her 2nd and 3rd husband for the 3rd time and he is now her caregiver. I read today in a column that Maria Shriver wrote on Huffington Post that most Alzheimer’s caregivers are women. This is not true in Mom’s case. She has had a hell of a stunning life - from eloping to marry my father when she was 20, he was 45, to raising 2 then 3 kids on her own. She rarely complained about her “life” although she did complain about her husbands - 4 in all !!! She crammed a lot of living into her life. I know if she could have one more non-Alzheimer’s day, she would celebrate her children and I would tell her to celebrate the advantages she seized - from a girl born in the middle 1930s in the mountains of Virginia to the businesswoman and mother and wives she became. She was fearless. She still is.

I love you, Mom.

copyright, 2010

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 21st, 2010 at 4:56 pm and is filed under David's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.