good grief Alzheimer’s

good grief Alzherimer’s, you are utterly brutal. There is no other way to describe what it is like to have my mother turned into a stranger. 

good grief Alzheimer’s, you have unhinged the elements that came together to create my mother. I have watched her brain deteriorate at the same time as I watch my kids’ brains grow. An undoing alongside a forming. Both are happening at rapid rates and I’m not sure I can keep up with either. 

good grief Alzheimer’s, you have become the veil through which we try to catch glimpses of recognition. There was a time it would happen more frequently, but over the years it’s become less and less. My hope in the end is that all my memories of my mother won’t be from when she doesn’t remember who I am.

good grief Alzheimer’s, the person I knew as my mother is gone. Strange thing to grieve the loss of someone who hasn’t even died yet. 

good grief Alzheimer’s, you have twisted, looped, and knotted time into an indiscernible thing. The woman who raised me and got her PhD while her kids were in elementary school is also the one who can no longer be left alone.

good grief Alzheimer’s, you override my mother’s ability to share what this has been like for her. You prevent me from peering into her mind to know if it’s anxiety, oblivion, or simplicity that shapes her days.

good grief Alzheimer’s, you take away my future grief and give it to me in doses over the years. How will I be able to mourn if what I think I’ll feel most is relief when it’s all over?

good grief Alzheimer’s, my kids will never have the grandmother I imagined my mother would be. They’re too young to really know what’s going on. I’m too whiplashed to know what to feel. And my mother is too far gone for me to be able to thank her for all she did now that I’m a parent too. 

good grief Alzheimer’s, you muddy the past, derail the present, and complicate the future. Your tendrils leave nothing untouched, least of all the conflict between what I feel and the impossible situation you’ve put my family in.