Today, ten years after mom passed away, we still have no jokes about Alzheimers and scold those who might make them. Only someone who has never dealt with dementia would find anything funny in it.
Even so, there are times when we giggle over some things that happened. Toward the last months of mom's life, my sister's husband was carrying her to bed, for she was too weak to walk and the
wheel chair was near impossible to get up the step into the bedroom part of the house. As he neared the bed, he accidentally tripped and dropped her onto the king size bed. Mom looked up at him, eyes snapping, and said, "Well, if that's how you're going to treat me, I'm not going out with you anymore."
The last year of life, we had three different nurses that came to help with mom. An Hispanic, A Caucasian, and a black lady. One morning the black lady, who's name happened to be Sandy, came to help mom out of bed and to the bathroom. She said, "Hello, Mrs. Legler, do you remember me? Mom looked at her and said, "Oh, all you girls look alike." My sister and I almost couldn't stop laughing.
My sisters and I remind one another of the funny things because even after all these years, we still can't stand to talk about the hard things. I'm so grateful that you will be helping the caregivers because it is a difficult task, caring for a parent or grandparent, and the sadness and agony of heart that goes with the job goes deep into the caregiver's soul.
I just wanted to say that while caregiving an Alzheimer's person is difficult beyond description, there will be funny times. Not many, but some. My sisters and I choose to remember the funny things--as well as talking about the mom we grew up with. How we missed her. Her body walked around the house, but mom wasn't in it.
