Thanksgiving Prayers

Bless us, oh Lord, and these, Thy gifts

Fortunately, our family has been blessed many times, and in many ways. We have been especially blessed to have a close, loving, and supportive family, and we were all together for Thanksgiving last week.

It was a quiet holiday spent at my sister's house, with the requisite football and overeating. It was a peaceful and loving day, and it seemed that each of us focused our day around Daddy, each in our own way.

I've noticed that, without a word being spoken about it, we are circling the wagons around Dad. It's difficult to describe, but each of us nurtures, supports, and protects him in different ways. It's good for him, of course, but it is also good for us as well. We have grown closer to our parents, and to each other, as a result of Daddy's Alzheimer's. It's a comfort to me to share that closeness with my siblings.

When it can time to say Grace Before Meals last Thursday, we all suffered together. Daddy, a devout Catholic for all his 85 years, has forgotten how to make the sign of the Cross and some of the words to Grace. We all covered, and Mom helped him out, but I know my brother and I were visibly in tears. I'm crying again now, remembering.

Learning Lessons

Do not dwell in the past,

do not dream of the future,
concentrate the mind on the present moment.
-- Buddha

My father is teaching me some important lessons about life.

I have come to an intersection on the highway of my life, and standing here with Daddy is making me view the road in a whole new light.

Daddy lives in the moment. He has lost the need to worry about the future, and he is rapidly losing his past as well. He is happy or sad at each moment in time, encapsulated in itself. This is more of a blessing than you can imagine.

I, on the other hand, worry. A lot. That's what I do. I also waste an inordinate amount of time and energy on regrets. All the while, I missing what Daddy is experiencing: the present, the here-and-now. I was in therapy for years. My therapist was constantly trying to teach me "mindful awareness" -- shrink-speak for "living in the present."

So now I look at my father, bent with age and feeble. A man whose brain is gradually consuming itself. A man approaching death. Guess what? He is showing me how to live, just as surely as he taught me to ride a bike and drive a car and dance. He is teaching me to appreciate the immediate, to cherish the small moments that make up life.

I'm a shitty student when it comes to things like this, but I am trying. I refuse to continue on as I did before, worrying and fretting and making myself crazy over things I either can't change or can't control. I am no longer witing for my life to start, because as I sit here waiting time is moving along.

As the man said, "Let's roll!"

Sliding Downhill

Sorrow turns the stars into mourners,
and every wind of heaven into a dirge.
Patrick Hannay

Living here, I am seeing more and more clearly how rapidly Daddy is declining.

His physical health is deteriorating rapidly. He is now a frail, feeble old man who is less and less able to care for himself. The spinal stenosis, of course, is a large part of his disability, as it impedes his ability to walk. The Alzheimer's complicates that by rendering him unable to remember how to use his walker correctly. Often he even lacks the strength to stand up on his own, and needs help getting out of his chair.

He is losing his table manners, and although neither my mother nor I say anything about it, it is apparent to both of us. We make his sandwich for him at lunch, and generally serve him the majority of his dinner. There have been times when we have needed to cut his meet for him, and frequently we need to instruct him on how to eat certain things. His appetite is excellent, and despite complaining at virtually every meal that we have given him too much food, he manages to eat every morsel.

Quite often has trouble in the bathroom these days. There are times that urinary accidents force him to change his pants in the middle of the day, and from time to time he needs to be re-showered due to difficulty in managing bowel movements. Thankfully Mom is angel of heaven in these situations, as I tend to collapse like a cheap lawn chair.

My sweet, loving, and gentle Daddy is also undergoing personality changes as well. He can be very suspicious and demanding, and at times downright disagreeable. Despite knowing the origin of these behaviors, I still find myself deeply upset when he yells at me. His bad temper one of the things that hurts me most to see, since it is so unlike him.

There are times, more frequent, that he is compliant and sweet. Sadly though, he is also becoming more and more childlike every day.

Regression and deterioration, both physical and mental, are wreaking havoc on my poor father.

Losing language

In Alzheimer's, the mind dies first:

Names, dates, places-the interior scrapbook of an entire life-

fade into mists of nonrecognition.

Matt Clark

Both temporal lobes of my father's brain are showing the impact of Alzheimer's.

He is forgetting us, his children, slowly but surely. He may know who we are at any given moment, but in the next instant that knowledge is gone. He can be sitting with me, looking at an old family picture, and not know that he is looking at a photograph of me. A large portion of the time he can still identify us as siblings, or as his children, even if he can not put a name to a face. Other times he is as clear as a bell. Sadly, the clear times are becoming few and far between. Last night he confused me with my mother. It was heartbreaking for me to hear.

His ability to retain information is very limited now. He repeats questions endlessly. It is virtually impossible for him to learn anything new; he is having great difficulty hanging on to what he has known in the past. Every day brings a new and noticable cognitive deficiet.

How much longer will he be able to hang on? Do I even want to know?

If You Don't Laugh............

Comedy is an escape,

not from truth but from despair

Christopher Fry

This morning brought a sadly amusing Alzheimer's mini-event.

Mom brought Daddy's slippers out of his bedroom to show me. Instead of a pair of socks, Dad had stuffed a pair of underwear in each one. It was such a silly thing that we both had to smile at it, and share an poignant chuckle.

There are more and more moments like this now, indicative of the steady progression of the disease. If looked at within the larger context, these little things will break your heart. So instead, whenever we can, we look at the event in isolation, grasping desperately for the humor.