Posted 2/18/19 early
I have dabbled off and on in semi-pro writing for over 20 years. The low minor leagues, if you will. A plump bat boy in the minor leagues at best. Even with my questionable grammar and my uber-liberal use of suffixes, prefixes, and oddball words, I have completed several thousand “How To” and entertainment articles for content farms, blogs, and the like online as sort of a side hustle job. (I have kids, you know…). Nothing in the write-o-sphere thrills me more than writing fun, lighthearted stories and poems. I once completed a multiple part series on how to tell if your gerbil or hamster truly likes you. I got into the head of those little beasts and deserved a Pulitzer or maybe even a Nobel prize for my effort. It moved mountains for pet rodent aficionados. (lol) Writing about topics I like flows off my hunt-and-peck typing, double-barreled index fingers faster than you can ever know. Beyond How-to’s and “Entertainment” topics, the only thing I write with any more hot knife butter-ease is Christian topics, of which I have produced many as well. This Alzheimer’s blog (soon to be) via Facebook post compilation has proven to be much harder and it goes against the grain of the entertainer in me.
Anyone who spends time on the Alzheimer’s/Dementia/Caregiver support FB groups for this disease knows the emotional toll they take just skimming a few of the countless rants of anger, deep/profound sadness and confusion. 🙁 There are tens of thousands of Sweet 17s from sea to shining sea. :(After reading these heart-felt posts for 10 minutes, I feel like I have Ivan Drago-softened Rocky ribs. 🙁 Please don’t hear me wrong. Don’t stop posting, crying and screaming when you need to in these forums. I am not a psychologist any more than I am a neurosurgeon or a footwear model, but I can tell you that sharing experiences about my mom is a life-giving catharsis to me and I sincerely appreciate your reading these posts. I do sincerely try to show all sides of this disease. I think 75% or more of my posts have included pictures and/or videos of joy among the tears. That is sincerely what I shoot for since there is plenty (!!) of sadness to go around on here. I also want desperately to try to find the good in this bad.
Please join me as you read and post trying to share the good with the bad. The triumphs and the defeats. The pretty songs and the perhaps less pretty. Mom was always an advocate of the “little guy”…the underdog. She cares/cared for people who didn’t always deserve care. (i.e. the teenage me) She fought city hall to save stray animals. She collected society’s “broken toys” and helped fix them as best she could. Some have called her co-dependent in the past, whatever the horse hockey that term means, as a way to say her service to humanity is somehow a self-serving task meant only for her own benefit, but I know the real mom. She did and does still care deeply. She tries to pawn her meal off on me every single time to be sure I am fed. (lol…maybe her vision needs a look again?) She still thinks she is a burden, despite our correcting her often. I bring this up because I worry that some may find my posts and especially pictures or videos to be dishonorable to her. Again I deploy a hearty, Colonel Potter-approved “Road Apples!” I know that she would be ok with it because she would say that if people could be helped, let’er rip. I wish you all could have met the wonderfully loving entertainer mom long ago as a reference. Things will eventually get too rough to post details and videos. Until then, I will do my best to share her story, the reason for her joy, and the challenges of this stinkin’ disease.
Thank you for reading
#EndALZ
