Today’s Walk

Imagine this. You awaken in the morning and have no idea where you are, who are
or who any of the people around you are. And that not knowing did not go away as the day progressed. It lasted all day.

Alzheimer’s Disease does this to its victims.

The Alzheimer’s Association aptly designates today—June 20 and the Summer Solstice—as the culmination of their month-long observance highlighting the estimated 5.8 million people age 65 and older living with the disease. The association emphasizes their activities on this day by naming it The Longest Day.

In his last years, my father greeted each new day without knowing anything about it before Alzheimer’s took him almost 20 years ago. Especially when he had to live in a nursing home, my father awakened in an agitated, sometimes combative state. Alzheimer’s morphed an always mild man not given to anger into a ready-to-fight senior citizen. My sister and I think he became this other person because he didn’t know anything about the day he had entered.

Seven years in age separated my father and his brother, but they seemed to have a strong, supportive relationship.

It was my uncle who came to our rescue when New Orleans flooded in 1965. My father was devastated when my uncle went to Viet Nam. Perusing family papers and pictures yields many other examples of their brotherly relationship. Unfortunately, they shared what we are afraid may be the “family disease.” Alzheimer’s took my uncle 10 years after my father.

Now, my cousin, the one closest to me in age, and I kind of check each other out from time to time to see if we recognize Alzheimer’s symptoms in ourselves.

So far, so good. Watching Alzheimer’s unfold in a loved one is not fun. Alzheimer’s robs a person of his or her personhood. Everything is taken, usually slowly and painstakingly.

My father and my uncle earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Both were ministers, with my uncle becoming an army chaplain and serving twice in Viet Nam and my father being a church pastor. Both were married and had children.

Alzheimer’s stealthily pulled the details of their lives from them. Now we can laugh about my father and the printer he bought for his computer. It stayed in the box, and of course. unconnected to the computer. Forever. Anytime someone mentioned the printer, Daddy would reply that he wanted to read the instruction manual first. That printer never left the box. This from a man who had built a stereo from scratch, and it worked. This from a man who could do just about anything to an airplane.

My father began airplane flying lessons at age 16 and joined the Army Air Corps during WWII. When I was born, he was in civil service, taking care of airplanes. He later taught others to fly. My mother said he could tell what kind of plane was flying overheard just by listening. But, the last time my sister drove him to the airport just to watch the “take offs and landings”—one of our family fun things—he didn’t even look up.

From my father and uncle, Alzheimer’s took:

Brothers who had delivered sermons to countless people in sometimes trying setting, the ability to speak, read or write;

Brothers who enjoyed playing gold together, the ability to enjoy their hobbies;

Brothers who had families, the names of their wives and children;

Brothers who shared family and a family history, the knowledge of who they were;

Brothers who participated in daily life, the knowledge of where they were as they awoke each Fromday;

Brothers  who shared their history, their memories, their lives, their very being.

Never forget this. Alzheimer’s is an insidious disease.

Thoughts from my book in progress, In the Gloaming: My Father, Alzheimer’s and Me