dagblog - Comments for "A Nice Dream, Memories, and the Brutality of Alzheimer's Disease "

I lost my dad to brain cancer

DF — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 02:49:28 +0000

In reply to A Nice Dream, Memories, and the Brutality of Alzheimer's Disease

I lost my dad to brain cancer a couple of years ago. The worst part was watching him deteriorate mentally. Especially towards the end, he seemed less and less himself until I felt as if I could scarcely recognize any real part of the man that I had known as my father. Then there would be moments where he would suddenly resurface, usually with a witty comment and a wry grin that let me know that some part of him was still in there somewhere. Then he would be gone again.

For a while after he died, I would dream about him. I kept a journal of the dreams because I didn't want to forget them. In one of the early dreams he collapsed on the floor and then grew younger as he lay there smiling at me, all of the age that the cancer had visited upon his face disappearing before my eyes. He became like I remembered him when I was a boy, his hair and beard dark and full.

The last dream I had of him was the most vivid dream I've ever had. In the dream, I was at a small airport in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. There was a tiny, dark bar there that was filled with old men. I walked up to the bar and spoke with one of the men for a few moments. Then my father walked in. He stood next to me smiling. I placed my hand on his shoulder to see if he felt real. He did. He began to speak, but no sound came out of his mouth. I began to panic because I desperately wanted to hear his words. I couldn't. The panic woke me up.

He lived less than a year after diagnosis, which is not uncommon for the illness from which he suffered. I can only imagine what it must be like to go through that for the better part of two decades.

I can still remember him. I'm glad you can remember, too.

I'm glad the memories &

quinn esq — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:14:57 +0000

In reply to A Nice Dream, Memories, and the Brutality of Alzheimer's Disease

I'm glad the memories & dreams are coming, O. I lived away from my father for 20 years before he died. Saw him twice a year, but not the same. Now, oddly, I remember more of him than I ever did. It took years, after he was gone, for those vaults to open back up.

A lovely piece, about a terrible thing.

Sweet dreams, O.

Thanks, G. It's always okay

Orlando — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 23:55:06 +0000

In reply to O, I didn't comment before

Thanks, G. It's always okay to say nothing, especially when you don't know what to say.

There are a few people in my life who constantly ask me how my mom is, not close friends and family who are actually interested in her or my well being, but aquaintances who think they should ask because it's the right thing to do. I've taken to answering, "One day closer to death," with a smile, because I want to make them so uncomfortable that they stop asking.

That said, it's very easy to tell the difference between the caring ask and the compulsory one.

O, I didn't comment before

Michael Wolraich — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:06:38 +0000

In reply to A Nice Dream, Memories, and the Brutality of Alzheimer's Disease

O, I didn't comment before b/c I didn't know what to write, and I still don't, but it's a beautiful and poignant piece. Thank you for sharing with us. I hope that the process is helpful to you as well. I'm very glad that your mother has begun to return to you, in your thoughts and dreams if not in life, and I wish the best for you and for her.

Orlando, bless you. In about

Bluesplashy — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:20:33 +0000

In reply to A Nice Dream, Memories, and the Brutality of Alzheimer's Disease

Orlando, bless you. In about 10 days I am moving home to the farm to help my parents. I will be there through to the end. The farm land is leased but there is so much just around the barns. My dad is going down physically really fast and he has always been so strong. My mom needs help because he can do so little, It is hard enough with the physical deterioration, My heart goes out to you and djamo with the your parents having alzheimer's.

Thanks for your comments

Orlando — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:25:33 +0000

In reply to A Nice Dream, Memories, and the Brutality of Alzheimer's Disease

Thanks for your comments everybody.

Deadman, to answer your question, I think I couldn't recall my mom as she was vividly because that person is so vastly different from the woman I see in front of me. For a long time--years, really--I couldn't talk about it, I couldn't really think about it, without completely shutting down. And I still had to put one foot in front of the other each day, so I guess my mind was helping me out. Over the years, it has gotten easier, or I guess I've just started to accept it, so maybe that's why she's coming back to me.

I had another dream about her last night, which is just an incredible gift. We were cleaning the house together. When I was 22, I lived overseas for six months and had a pretty difficult time. I was so homesick and I would have these dreams at night where I would be at home, in my living room, and everything was right. It wasn't like those dreams you have when you're at home but it's somebody else's house, or it's your house but Bob Barker is there. I would be at home, with the right people, in the right room, doing the right things. And I would wake up and literally weep when I realized it wasn't real. These last two mornings have been so different. I know it's not real. But it feels like I'm getting to spend time with my mom again, and it's really, really nice.

thanks for sharing, o. i am

Deadman — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:29:00 +0000

In reply to A Nice Dream, Memories, and the Brutality of Alzheimer's Disease

thanks for sharing, o. i am really sorry for you and your mom, for both of your pain and your suffering.

i'm just curious, why do you think your mother's memory was so elusive when so many other memories from your child were vivid?

my grandfather had a stroke when i was 14, and ended up living another 10 years though he was never the same. his memory was weak and kept getting weaker through the years. he was one of the most special people in my life and it was very tough for me to have him only vaguely recognize me or not remember my name.

By the time he passed, it was very tough for me to remember how he was pre-stroke. while there were certainly pieces of his personality in the post-stroke grandfather, the man i really wanted to remember was the one who handed me twenties when my grandma wasn't looking, bought me my first Playboy, who talked for hours about the Cardinals baseball team, who loved to come over and listen to our kenny rogers album (and the gambler in particular), who always wore cool brimmed hats, who smelled like the oddly pleasant combination of must and stale cigar smoke, who had the sweetest laugh you ever heard and who made it clear always that his grandchildren were the lights of his life.

So I can only begin to imagine the pain of losing of losing a mother to alzheimer's, esp. at such a young age. it strikes me as totally unfair. I've written about the seeming fallacy of increased wisdom being the one thing that we're supposed to enjoy as we get older, but accumulating memories are another one of the rare sweetnesses of aging, yet they too often elude us when we can most use them.

Thanks for this, Orlando. I

acanuck — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:57:57 +0000

In reply to A Nice Dream, Memories, and the Brutality of Alzheimer's Disease

Thanks for this, Orlando. I can't imagine a nastier disease than Alzheimer's. At least with cancer or AIDS, the mind fails only when the body does. My aging mother has difficulty distinguishing her children by name, even those she sees every day.

We had a family reunion a while back. Relatives we hadn't seen in decades showed up, with photos of the old family farm in Quebec's Gaspe Peninsula, sold off years ago. One picture showed a nondesript spit of land, which someone described as the part inherited by Aunt or Uncle X. My mother interrupted. "No, that part of the property went to Y, who later split it up between Y and Z."

I nearly cried. She was speaking with an assurance I hadn't heard in years, confident in her recollection of something that happened 60 or 70 years ago. I realized how much I missed that woman.