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.