unconditional love – My Alzheimer's Story

what it looks like when an angel loves you

February 21, 2017March 10, 2019 My Alzheimer's Story

Our angel Gabrielle Vallée McKenna almost made it to her one hundredth birthday. She wasn’t quite sure of her exact birth date, she knew the year and the month (February 1916), but her recollection of the day varied between the 21st and the 29th. I know the date she died though: August 20, 2014. Her goal was to reach 100; she didn’t quite make it. Mom joined Gaby on August 17, 2016. I hope the two BFFs are raising Cain wherever they are.

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On May 10, 2014, Mom was too sick and/or sedated with antipsychotics to do anything more than listen to Eric’s beautiful piano playing. She couldn’t sing, play or clap as was her wont. There were no Beatles tunes. No Ain’t She Sweet?, no She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain, no Doe a Deer either.

All Mom could do was sit in the chair with her eyes closed and let the melodies soothe her. About 15 minutes into the session, as Eric played What a Wonderful World, Mom’s BFF Gaby came in to the drawing room to spend some time with us. That was a bit out of the ordinary as Gaby slept most afternoons. As she walked past Patti, Gaby spontaneously bent down to kiss Mom’s cheek. I was lucky to capture the precious moment with my iPhone.

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2015/08/20/our-angel-gaby-is-raising-cain/

https://myalzheimersstory.com/2013/08/29/loving-words-at-sunset/

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Care Partnering, Life & Living, Love, Memories

the day our best wasn’t good enough

November 16, 2016November 15, 2018 My Alzheimer's Story

November 16, 2012: I took the photograph before nine; I know for sure because Caroline was never late. In it, Mom stands like a ghost in the back doorway, peering from the inside out. She’s already knocked several times on the window – an impatient signal for me to join her.

The hood of her white winter coat is pulled up over the silly tuque (also white) that causes me to giggle every time she puts it on because it makes her look like an alien. She picked it out herself on a shopping expedition with Caroline and she thinks it’s lovely. Her fuchsia-gloved hands are at her sides next to her pocket sockets.

I’m out and she’s in because she awoke, got up and came downstairs during my crack-of-dawn photo shoot. Maybe she felt something was wrong. I saw her through the window and went back into the house, bundled her up and dragged her outside with me so I could continue capturing the morning glory. She quickly tired of the adventure and wanted to go in. Who could blame her? Outside is was a bone-chilling mid-November day, the 16^th to be exact; inside her big brick house it was warm and cosy. Why in the world would she want to be anywhere else? I snapped a dozen more images including several of her phantom-like behind the gingerbread screen door and the glass. Then I pocketed my iPhone and shivered, but not from the cold.

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Caroline walked through the front door at 9 a.m. sharp as usual. She had tears in her eyes.

“I don’t know if I can do this Punkie,” she said.

“I know Big Bird.” I reached up. She bent over. We hugged. Caroline is close to six feet tall; Mom looked like a peanut beside her. But the unlikely pair had grown as close as any two people could possibly be. Had I not loved Caroline too, I might have been jealous. In fact, it was a privilege to witness to the joy they found in each other whenever they were together. During the previous year, Mom had crawled into bed with me most mornings with the same questions:

“Is Caroline coming today Punkie?”

“Yes Mom, she’ll be here at 9 o’clock.” I answered if it were a weekday.

“Oh. That’s good eh Punk?”

“Yeah. We love Caroline Mom. She’s an angel.”

“Yeah. She’s a good girl that Caroline. How long before 9 o’clock Punk?”

“Let me see Mom. It’s six now, so she’ll be here in three hours. That’s not too long. Why don’t you try to go back to sleep until then?”

“Okay. I’ll try.” And sometimes she did. But on November 16, 2012, Caroline found us downstairs in the kitchen instead of snuggled up in bed.

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Both Caroline and I had been pretty messed-up for several weeks. Lots of tears. Lots of hugs. Lots of wishing things were different. Sadly, they weren’t. We were exhausted, drained, at the end of our proverbial ropes. Together, we had cared for Mom for a year with only occasional support from a couple of other outside caregivers. We were emotionally and physically spent.

Had I known then what I know now, I believe I could have reduced the strain on all of us. But I didn’t. I learned a great deal during that year, but I’ve discovered a lot more since. To properly care for someone with Alzheimer’s disease in their own home without someone having a breakdown of some kind requires a team of five or six care partners working in shifts. We were two, and I was powerless to change things.

But we loved her, we loved each other and we did the best we could. We forged a magical three-way bond right from the start: a triad of women of different ages with differing challenges pulled together unexpectedly by the disease of the eldest. Our year-long journey was a hugely enriching gift in many ways. This was the day it would come to an end. Caroline and I despaired at the thought of Mom leaving her home of forty years, where she was surrounded by the things she cherished, to live in an unfamiliar place filled with strangers. On top of everything, we were devastated by what we were about to do. She didn’t know. We hadn’t told her. To her this day was a day like any other.

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We had breakfast together as we often did, then Caroline took Mom upstairs to help her shower and get dressed. When they came back down, Mom looked beautiful. Her short-ish silver white hair was slightly wavy. Caroline and she had chosen a purple turtleneck and matching corduroy trousers. Her favourite ski medal sat dead center under her chin. The silver filigree slipper and chain I got her at the suq in Marrakesh hung just above her Christmas tree lights necklace. She had on her flower petal rings and her watch.

She and Caroline played catch in the kitchen with a squeegee rubber toy, and her pink bangles tinkled as she moved. They sang “You Are My Sunshine.” I shot some video. Caroline carefully did Mom’s nails at the kitchen table just as she had done virtually every weekday for a year. It would be the last time. In the midst of the manicure, Caroline reached for a tissue and blew her nose. Mom blew her nose too. Caroline seemed to have something in her eye. Mom didn’t notice, but I did.

I made them pose in the middle of the kitchen and froze them in time: two fast friends more than fifty years apart in age laughing, clowning and singing like a couple of schoolgirls. Aside from the misty eyes I saw and Mom didn’t, Caroline didn’t give away a thing. They were simply gorgeous in those last moments on that last day.

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“I’m taking you for lunch and then we’re going to go shopping Madam. Okay with you?” Caroline said to Mom at around noon.

“That’ll be a nice treat,” Mom’s face lit up; she turned to me, “Are you coming too Punkie?”

“Not today Mom. I have a few things to do. I’ll see you later, okay?” I had a hard time forcing the words out while holding the tears at bay.

“Okay dear,” Mom felt safe going with Caroline. “We won’t be long.” She trusted us. We were her family, one daughter born of the flesh, the other of the spirit. She didn’t know that once she walked out the door she would never return to this home again. But we knew.

I watched them make their way out to the car, Mom in her rust-red coat this time, not the white one. She had on her beloved pink tam. Neither of them looked back. But for some reason, I waved. When they were finally out of the driveway and onto the road, I turned and felt the big wooden door support me from behind as I slid to the floor. I sat there alone for a long time just letting tears roll in rivers down my face.

We did our best. But in the end it wasn’t enough. Anyone who has been through this will know what I mean. Every November 16, I cry again. For all of us and for everything we could and couldn’t do.

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Death & Dying, Life & Living, Love, Memories, Videos

our angel gaby is raising cain

August 20, 2015August 30, 2018 My Alzheimer's Story

Flashback August 20, 2015: “I love my Patti,” Gaby told me just about every day for a year and a half.

There’s nothing particularly remarkable about that. People say “I love you” at the drop of a hat these days. But Gaby didn’t just say it. She radiated unconditional love like the sun’s warmth on a summer day; showered Mom with it like a gentle spring rain; enveloped her in it as one might cocoon a chilled soul with a thick, soft blanket on a cold winter night. I was privileged to witness this profound connection, and I’ve been challenged to capture it in words and images. But I’ve tried.

In March 2013, a few months after they first met I wrote (in a longish post about being lost and found):

The way Gaby looks at my mother cleaves my heart in two. It’s full of sheer joy, acceptance and love; it’s amazing to behold. Gaby’s and Mom’s friendship has deepened in tandem with my mother’s declining capacity over the past five months. That Mom is becoming more and more lost in an Alzheimer’s haze doesn’t faze Gaby in the least. She just looks at Mom and smiles, nods, and agrees with whatever gobbledygook finds its way from my mother’s mind to her mouth.

In loving words at sunset (which was featured on FreshlyPressed and has been viewed thousands of times) I eavesdropped while the sat watching the sunset:

“I’m glad I’m here with my friend Patti, enjoying the sunset,” Gaby says.

“Is it time to go home yet?” Mom replies.

“Almost.” Gaby slides her hand down Patti’s purple-splotched forearm. She gathers Patti’s hand in her own. “We’ll go together,” she says.

I blogged about the time Mom serenaded us with Zippity Do Dah. I captured on video what it looks like when an angel loves you. I videoed as they sang O Canada together on July 1, 2014. Five days later, I took the touching one-minute clip below of Mom and Gaby parting company before dinner – Gaby still ate in the main dining room; Mom had to go to the second floor. They planned to meet afterward and cause a ruckus.

Not long after, I discovered some promises, like some rules, are meant to be broken. I snapped dozens of pictures of the two of them and a few of the three of us as we shared this earthly space. I felt deeply grateful every minute we were together . The last time the three of us had dinner, Gaby and Mom watched a flock of seagulls on the lawn while I cleaned up afterward. Just before it was time to go, Gaby said to Mom:

“That’s nice of those birds to come here. And walk around for us to watch them.”

I felt the tender center of my heart cave in on itself. A second or two later as if on cue, the seagulls took wing leaving Mom, Gaby and I to do the same. I will be devastated when Mom goes home. But our angel Gabrielle will be there to welcome her and raise Cain. That’s one more thing to be thankful for.