Thank you for all you have done. Special thanks to those who have given care to my family over the years, especially Marta, Boris and Nick.
Via USA Today:
A few years ago, I bought a small quilt by Charlotte Metheny called “Skating in the Fog” from the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative. It showed an indistinct figure in blue skating on a mottled pond with snow and fog all around. It seemed the perfect metaphor for the experience of Alzheimer’s.
When our aunt got Alzheimer’s, we watched her joyful, happy personality unravel over the years. The remorseless unwinding of a human life started small — with skipping a groove, being repetitive with questions, not knowing what to do in situations and acting oddly.
In photographs over the years, we could see the light of intelligence and recognition fade from her cheerful eyes, and her buoyant personality drift away. She became problematic at times, with uncharacteristic bouts of sudden hostility and paranoia. The final year, she got lost in her own bedroom, mistook her daughter for her long-dead sister, and never again knew who she was, where she was or who the people around her were.
She was skating in the fog.
What heartened our family most was that her daughter and her granddaughter took loving care of her at home for that entire harrowing decade-long slide while they still held down a job and went to school. They created a normal, happy, domestic life for our aunt — a life where she still had a role and a meaning.
This Thanksgiving, we should give our full-throated thanks for selfless caregivers such as these two women. They teach us so much about the purest form of love — one that is wordless and that is unconditional, with no expectation of reward. They quietly sacrifice years of their lives to care for someone who might not even know their names anymore.