With Alzheimer’s disease, the loved ones feel the loss and the grief. In my small family of three, my father and I felt the loss as my mother slipped away into her own world leaving us behind. I watched as my father tried to hang on to his wife, the love of his life. At the same time, I was struggling with my own loss of my mother, my confidant since early adulthood and my best friend. I became my father’s support and therapist of sorts during a time when I needed my own support and therapist. It felt like an impossible situation sometimes.
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I doubt my mother ever feels a sense of loss when I leave. For me though, it still hurts sometimes because she doesn’t remember me or know that I was just there. An Alzheimer’s patient lives entirely in what he or she sees in the moment. I know that she loves having me in her world while I’m there. When I sit with my arm around her, she gets as close as possible. But once I duck out of her sight, I don’t exist to her. She does not miss me.
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Many of the reasons for choosing the current memory unit had to do with proximity to my father’s apartment, 2 floors below my mother’s room, as well as the choice of amenities available for them to enjoy together as a couple. Everything changed when my father died.
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