December 25, 2012 · 5:13 pm

A day for love of family & friends

Of course I am thinking of both of my parents today. As children grow into adults, sometimes holidays like Christmas seem more like a burden than a day to enjoy with your loved ones. Buying gifts, making travel arrangements, trying to get through visits without a spat, it’s enough to knock the jolly spirit out of anybody.

And admittedly there were many Christmases where I felt just like that. While I never actually spent a Christmas day with my parents after I turned 19, due to living so far away and school/work commitments, I would try to at least make an annual visit. I would usually choose somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I can’t say I really enjoyed these visits. I do regret never having the chance to just take Dad aside and have some daughter-father bonding moments over a cup of coffee or beer. But then again, Dad was always a benign but forgettable figure in my life at that point. We weren’t close, we never had a deep bond.

Of course, having watched him battle Alzheimer’s for over four years, now I realize all of those years of lost opportunities. Dad never shut me out, but he wasn’t one to pursue a more active father-daughter relationship. I was relieved at the time that I only had Mom’s need for companionship to fulfill.

Holidays at their most basic are good excuses for families to bond together, to share stories and create their own unique traditions. While I can’t go back in time and change things in my own family, I can at least share my story and encourage others to embrace family bonding opportunities. What may seem like a mild inconvenience now may create memories that you will cherish forever.

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December 24, 2012 · 5:50 pm

The year I found out my parents were Santa

When I was four, my parents bought me a Powder Puff big wheel cycle for Christmas. This replaced my Fonzie cycle, which I guess I outgrew or it broke down. Of course, it had to be assembled before Christmas Day, and my mom worked in secret after I went to bed while Dad was at work to get the darn cycle put together.

In many households, assembling toys is the Dad’s job, but my father was never handy with tools, even though he worked for a trucking company for years.

Once Mom finally had the monstrosity assembled, a new problem arose. Where would they hide the conspicuous gift in our tiny apartment?

Mom did her best to hide it in the closet, but one day, as she was hanging up Dad’s freshly laundered clothes on his side of the closet, I snatched a peek at the big plastic wheel and the pastel streamers hanging off the handlebars.

And that’s the moment I realized Santa didn’t really exist. I don’t remember being particularly upset by discovering the truth. I played along for a couple of more years with my mom’s insistence that Santa was real before finally revealing I saw the cycle in the closet when I was four.

While most kids graduate to an actual bicycle after riding these contraptions as little kids, I never did. And while I never asked, I don’t think Dad ever learned how to ride a bike either. I just can’t imagine Dad atop a bike, wearing a helmet!

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December 23, 2012 · 5:58 pm

Home, sweet home

I finally made it back home. If I’ve learned anything over the past year or so, it’s not to take anything for granted.

I’ve always been a homebody, but after seeing Dad separated from his home in the last year of his life due to Alzheimer’s, I have a renewed sense of how important home and family and friends really are in this world.

We don’t know when disaster will strike and take us away from our creature comforts.

That lesson learned is better than any worldly possession that can be wrapped under a tree.

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December 22, 2012 · 2:51 pm

Dad’s bachelor years and the holidays

I’m inching closer to home, and as I sit in a Starbucks writing this, watching people gathering and exchanging gifts and wishing each other “happy holidays” I feel that pang of homesickness strike even harder. That got me to thinking about all of those years when Dad was a single guy, after he immigrated to America. He could rarely afford to make trips home to Ireland. So what did he do for Christmas all of those years?

I don’t remember him ever talking about memories of Christmas spent as a bachelor. Dad was pretty good at making pals, so maybe one of them invited him over to their family’s house for a Christmas dinner. Certainly Dad was quite handsome back then, so maybe he had a girlfriend to go out on a date with on Christmas. Knowing Dad, I’m guessing a pub was involved at some point. Maybe other solitary types banded together for a night of merriment. Also, I’m sure Dad would have attended holiday mass.

ornament

Or perhaps Dad had to work, or offered to work, to let the family guys spend the holiday at home. That’s something that Dad would have done.

I’m sure the pangs of homesickness were quite strong, especially those first few years in the States. He worshipped his mother and it must have been difficult to be separated from her during the holiday season. Did he even get a chance to make a phone call home?

This is one of those moments where I wish I could call up Dad and ask him to solve this mystery I’ve just created. Instead, I am left to my own imagination of what Dad did all of those holidays before Mom and I came along.

The best gift you can give yourself this holiday season is to ask your loved ones to tell stories about their past. Ask those burning questions now. You never know when it might be too late.

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December 21, 2012 · 8:18 pm

One year later, trying to return home again

Mom’s surgery was a week ago and went amazingly well, according to the doctors. She was discharged early and has been home for a few days now. She’s doing well physically, but emotionally she is down. I am desperate once again to get home to my own family, thousands of miles away, who I’ve pretty much abandoned over the last six months.

So I’ve made plans to return home for Christmas. Just like I did last year, after my father’s death.

My plans didn’t work out so well last year. A freak snowstorm hit, and I was stranded in Roswell, NM alone for the holiday. Weather shouldn’t be an issue this time, but with the way this year has gone, I won’t believe it until I actually walk into my home.

Mom is understanding but obviously depressed, just like last year. If there was ever a time to clone myself, it would be now.

I found this post called Embracing the Caregiver Role quite accurate in the guilt and mixed emotions one has in caring for an ill parent and balancing family responsibilities.

The author writes, “To be there for my Mother I had to borrow from all of those areas at a cost.” This is so true, and I’m sure other caregivers can relate to this statement.

Also, this statement is telling: “Circumstance had converted our relationship.” This is so true as well, when adult children have to assume the parent role for their own parents. It is never an easy transition to make.

So I’m giving myself the gift of guilt this holiday season, just like last year. Of course, last year, I never would have predicted how much I would be sacrificing this year in order to take care of another ill parent. Perhaps karma paid me a visit? Hopefully by now, I’ve paid back any karma debts owed.

Hopefully, I will make it home.

Hopefully, Mom will be okay.

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December 20, 2012 · 7:07 pm

One year since Dad has been gone

It’s hard for me to believe that it has been one whole year since Dad died. So much has happened, with Mom being ill for most of this year. Through it all, I’ve thought about Dad each and every day.

Today I remembered Dad by walking along his favorite walking trail and visiting the local library, his favorite place. I will be making a donation to the library in his honor. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and such a stark contrast to the hideous weather yesterday. Today, the skies were as blue as they could be, the sun was shining bright, and the winds were calm.

Dad and I at the assisted living facility, March 2011.

Dad and I at the assisted living facility, March 2011.

I started The Memories Project blog at the beginning of 2012 as my way to remember my father, to record memories and work through my grief. It has been a wonderful experience. From the NPR interview to all of the wonderful bloggers I have met that I otherwise would never have known, it has been truly rewarding and enlightening.

Today, I added an entry on Cowbird to mark this anniversary. It includes some priceless audio of my father singing to me as a baby. The recording is one of my most precious possessions.

While I haven’t been able to dedicate as much time to Alzheimer’s awareness as I would have liked this year, I hope to engage in more activities in 2013.

Thanks to all of you who take the time to read about someone you’ve never met. Dad would be so proud to know that he is making a positive difference in the world.

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December 19, 2012 · 7:21 pm

Howls of Alzheimer’s

It was a brutal, ugly weather day where my mom lives. The wind howled like a banshee all through the night and into the day. The wind was sustained at 40 mph, and geared up to 60 mph gusts at times. It left me feeling unsettled and on edge all day long. I set in the living room and in the chair that Dad spent most of his time in when he still lived at home. I watched the thin trees take a beating. They bent, but did not break with the vicious wind gusts. It was a miracle of nature to me.

At one point, blowing snow whipped its way through the sky.

Even though I avoided going out in the windy weather, I felt like the wind symbolized the battering my family has taken over the last year. And the howling made me think back to my Dad’s nightmares, and the sounds I would hear at the nursing home Dad spent the last year of his life in.

Perhaps we were lucky that Dad mainly became mute as his Alzheimer’s progressed, and there were no verbal tirades or helpless cries that some families have to endure.

Those howls and moans of souls trapped by the cruel disease of Alzheimer’s. It is a sound one can never forget.

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December 18, 2012 · 7:18 pm

Fleeting moments of connection

I read a moving blog post today about someone with Alzheimer’s who pleasantly surprised their family caregiver with a rare moment of lucidity. They were able to express their love verbally before Alzheimer’s moved back in and took the light out of their eyes, returning them to a glassy, blank stare.

For most of us, these lucid moments are few and far between.

This made me think about the last lucid interactions I had with my father. He was at the point where he was barely able to verbally communicate. He would sometimes be able to utter a few words that made sense, but most of the time, he carried that sad, faraway look in his eyes. But I remember that moment so clearly in the hospital room, when Dad’s eyes lit up with recognition while I was holding his hand.

“Oh, there you are,” he said, as if startled by this temporary retreat into reality.

“At first I couldn’t see you but now I can,” Dad said with a wan smile.

I knew that was the moment to say what was burning in my heart. “I love you Dad,” I said, slowly, clearly.

“I know you do,” Dad said. Then he began to drift away from me, back into the isolating world of Alzheimer’s.

But it is the moment of love that I remember the most.

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December 17, 2012 · 8:08 pm

Big warm hands

Mom is recovering in an amazing fashion from her major surgery on Friday. She’s still in the hospital, but may be released back home as soon as tomorrow!

Today Dad was weighing heavily on her mind. She began to weep as she talked about how she still missed him, the way he was before Alzheimer’s took hold of him

hands

She mentioned that one of the first things that she remembered about Dad was his big, warm hands. She remembered when they were courting and holding his big, strong, warm hand and feeling comforted.

She remembers dating other guys when she was younger who had cold, rough hands and that was such a turn-off to her. But Dad was a winner because not only were his hands big and warm, but they were soft, despite decades spent as a manual laborer.

It’s interesting what we remember most of the people we love. It’s not always what one would expect, but it is sweet just the same.

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December 16, 2012 · 7:20 pm

Connection between loneliness and Alzheimer’s?

I read an interesting study today that suggested there may be a connection between loneliness and Alzheimer’s. What was most interesting was that it was those who felt lonely versus those who lived alone but didn’t express feelings of loneliness that had a higher incidence of Alzheimer’s.

It was a surprising result to the researchers. I’ve read numerous studies about social isolation leading to everything from dementia to depression. I wonder if these studies have some inbuilt bias towards extroverted people. There are some people who need constant company or they feel lonely; others can interact socially with people once or twice a week and be perfectly happy.

I’m not sure if Dad felt lonely before Alzheimer’s set in. Dad certainly had a passion for “alone time” activities like reading. He also had a solitary job as a security guard for many years. So like me, he was comfortable being alone and entertaining himself. Did he yearn for more socializing? That I will never know.

But what is clear to me is that once Alzheimer’s took hold of my father, he was whisked away into an isolating world, where we really could no longer connect with him in a meaningful way. And I saw that same isolation play out on the faces of every patient in the dementia ward of the residential facility where my dad spent the last year of his life. I remember so many residents reaching out, touching my arm, trying to communicate with me, hoping to make some kind of human connection. I often felt like I let them down when they shuffled away after an awkward, confusing exchange.

I hope there are more studies investigating social isolation and dementia, and I hope they take into account that both introverts and extroverts exist, and that the definition of loneliness is different for every human being.

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