Posted 2/9/19
As Alzheimer’s progresses toward the end, it seems like filters wither away. It goes without saying, but you have 3 options: you become stripped down to the core attributes you were before, you become nothing like you were before, or some form of mix. Mom, in many ways, is a concentrated version of the old self these days. How so?:
She has always been a worry-wart. She is AnxietyGirl now (Marvel…I hope you are listening).
Mom used to be a giving person. Today she spends her entire meal trying to give me her food, then forgetting that I said it was for her, her health, and her beloved doctor’s chart.
She has always been funny. She is super funny now, just in a different way. She loves to make funny raspberry sounds with her mouth and have you make them back. She feels the connection of the laughter like she used to. Lots of videos we have posted show her humor. I will never forget the “I wish they would put a wet washcloth in her mouth” line I heard several months ago when one of the Sweet 17 were fake coughing to get attention.
She has always been athletic, and she still tries to walk a lot and arm wrestle the twig-armed ladies- and her family- when she can.
She has, as long as I can remember, been a modest person. Today she fights a bath like a gangsta rapper fights getting his drawers pulled up.
She has always been a caregiver. Today she tries a lot to help the much older ladies in the unit.
She hasn’t said (or done) socially inappropriate things a lot, in front of me at least. That filter is also gone. Enough said.
Filters and pretense are not always bad things while alive. However, I do yearn for heaven someday for all of us when all will be exposed and we can just be a sinless version of self without all of the smokescreens and camo. Mom has never been perfect, but she is an absolute gem in my book regardless which filter is removed next by this stupid disease.
#EndALZ