Inside the Dementia Epidemic: A Daughter's Memoir by Martha Stettinius

Author:Martha Stettinius [Stettinius, Martha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Alzheimers, Biography & Autobiography, Medical, Nonfiction, Personal Memoir, Retail
ISBN: 9780984932603
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Dundee-Lakemont Press
Published: 2012-09-28T04:00:00+00:00

Living Grief

In late October, two and a half years since she moved in with us, I bring Mom along with me and Ben and the kids for an afternoon at the lake. I imagine that she will light up at the sight of the cottage, but as she sits outside with me in the front yard in the shade of an umbrella, and watches the waves, her expression is flat, muted, as if the yard is just a place like any other.

At first, I feel deflated, but within moments I realize something: It’s time for me to stop trying to bring my mother pleasure through what’s left of her memory. If she no longer recognizes the deep blue swell of her lake, if these pieces of her life no longer move her, then truly there’s nothing but the present moment—and other people.

I decide to take her out for a rowboat ride. We had asked a boat builder in Maryland to make the forest-green rowboat, in the same color and style as I remember my grandfather’s old boat. I wonder if feeling the rowboat rock softly on the water will help my mother experience the joy in the lake she used to feel in her canoe, or when she watched the waves from her desk.

Ben helps me support Mom under her arms as she steps in. Mom sits in the middle of the wide seat along the back of the boat, Andrew squeezes into the bow, and from the middle seat I row the three of us a hundred feet out into the lake. I keep my eyes on hers. She grips the edge of the seat, her back ramrod straight, her eyes wide but not scared. We bounce gently on the waves and Mom releases her hands from the seat to stretch her arms and clasp the sides of the boat. She smiles. When I tell her that she can lean against the high back wall of the boat, she scoots her bottom toward the wall and relaxes.

Back on shore, there’s a problem. We find that Ben has gone off to the store; Andrew and I have to pull up the heavy boat and get Grammy out on our own. I call Morgan out of the house for her help. We hold Grammy’s hands and coach her to walk up the length of the boat from the back, which is still in the water, to the bow so we can help her step out onto the beach. She stands on the seat in the bow, too high to step down. I ask Andrew and Morgan to find a stool in the boathouse and they bicker about who should go. Andrew finds my garden stool, which has wheels, and I wedge it between my feet beside the boat and try to persuade Mom to step down on it.

“Don’t make me cry,” she says.

My heart flares for a moment with guilt, but she trusts me and her fear passes quickly. She holds my hands firmly as I ask Andrew to carry over one of the lawn chairs.

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