Memoir
Date Published: April 22nd
Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Sarah Vosburgh has often felt misunderstood by her mother, a woman who lived a quintessential suburban life. But when her mother is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Sarah’s world unravels, and she must confront a disease that will only worsen. As roles reverse between mother and daughter, Sarah faces the guilt of making decisions she hopes are the right ones while also carrying the grief of losing her mom bit by bit everyday. She navigates a labyrinth of health services amid the heartbreaking, and at times darkly humorous, realities of caregiving.
There are the white lies and midnight phone calls, the misbuttoned blouses, and the second slice of chocolate pie that tastes just as good as it did the first time. And then there’s the quiet awe at the persistence of connection even when language falters and names are forgotten.
“We have a date today, Ma.”
“We do?”
She greeted me with an uncharacteristic hug that morning. I
hugged gently back; she seemed so small and frail. “I’ve learned to hug; I
guess people don’t know you care unless you do” was what she had told me
growing up, while withholding hugs from me but sharing them with others when
she thought it socially advantageous. No worry, her hugs were awkward, stiff, a
bit too long, and a bit too tight. Her hug this day was my cue to tell the lie
I had prepared that in retrospect I probably didn’t need, but I still saw her
as capable of so much. I told it with equal measures of angst and
self-loathing.
“We’re headed to Countryside Care today, remember? You need
to get your blood pressure under control, and they need a florist to teach
flower arranging.”
“You’re coming too?”
“Yes, I’m gonna stay for a bit, but then you’ll have work to
do.”
“But you’ll come back to get me?”
“I will be back.”
Looking
into the confused, fearful face of my mother, whose eyes nevertheless held
hope, I had never felt more unlovable and less trustworthy. It had taken weeks
of planning—and many white lies—to lead to this mockingly beautiful day with a
sky the color of my dad’s silk screen inks labeled “cerulean.” Vivid crimsons,
yellows, and oranges, of a New England autumn completed the scene, which hadn’t
a care for our drama or the protective necessity of closing off my heart so I
could survive the blackness playing out in my mother’s life. There was no hope
now. No turn toward the future where there might be even a suggestion of hope
for improvement or a twinkle of joy in recognition. We’d entered a one-way
dark, spikey cave where the entryway behind sealed us into darkness with no
exit light beckoning ahead.
We were on our way to the memory support facility—misnomer that
it is—and I had told the first of many sets of lies to get my mother in the
door. The one-way door which she would enter and never return from. After this
she would never again cuddle at night with her kitty, or make herself a cup of
coffee and forget where she’d put it, or curl up in the reading chair in her
library with the newspaper, or spend an afternoon in her gardens, or soak in a
tub full of lavender bath salts to relax and wash away her cares, or shuffle
down the hall to her bedroom closet to find her favorite sweater against a
chill that wasn’t there, or answer the door delighted to see the faces of her
granddaughters—taller than she, whose names she could not remember—with her bra
on over two sweatshirts.
This particular morning came after weeks of paperwork and an
interview held at a local restaurant, else she’d not have gone. They’d called
me after the interview, which had included the creep.
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is Countryside Care memory care unit calling. We
interviewed your mother today, and we have some concerns.”
“That you can’t take her in memory care?”
“No, we think she’s a perfect
fit, but we don’t think we should wait until next month. We’d like to skip
her up on the waiting list and have her move in next week.”
“Next week?”
“Yes. When she was interviewed today, we noticed her husband
talked with his hands quite a bit, and every time he raised them your mother
leaned away and cowered in her seat. The social worker noticed bruises, too,
that we think are suspicious. We think he may be abusing her.”2
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