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My Year to Remember and Since: Alzheimer's and After, Part I

© Brenda S. Parris

Nine years ago my mother was diagnosed as having dementia of the Alzheimer's type. Eight years ago I left Florida State University, where I was working on my Master's degree, to move home to Alabama as my mother's caregiver. I was with her from August 1994 through December 1995 when she was placed in a nursing home. She died four months later, in April 1996, just a couple of weeks after her 80th birthday.

I wrote poems and kept a journal during my time with my mother. Three months after she died, I put those on the Web, along with some photos of her and my family, and the few links to Alzheimer's resources that I could find at the time.

A lot of people have written me that I shouldn't feel the guilt that comes through in my poems. I replied that these poems express the emotions of the moment, during my time as my mother's caregiver and after, and I think that others in the same kind of situation can identify with them.

I would like to share a few of those poems.

MAMA

Walking through the house
that doesn't feel like home;
You've forgotten it,
as well as all your children.
One day you woke up, and
those memories were gone.
You walk the floors and worry,
wishing for cattle and land,
for food, for cash crops.
You just can't understand how
it is today--why we don't need all that.
Your mind is still in the years
of the Great Depression.
So you walk and worry.
I try to explain, tell you
there's nothing to worry about.
I cook, and I tell you when it's
time to eat, and I give you your pills.
I clean the house.
I'm here for you, Mama.
We've got all we need;
We've got each other.
Please don't die, Mama;
You're all I've got.

(Written September 1994
Copyright 1994-2002
Brenda Parris Sibley)

The hardest thing for me to accept was the fact that my mother no longer knew me. She seemed to know me until I moved in with her, was happy when she found out I was moving back, but then then next day she no longer seemed to know me-- her youngest daughter, her baby girl "Sue."

IT'S ME

Mama, it's me,
I'm your youngest daughter.
Can't you see that; don't you know
who it is that loves you so?

mama.JPG	Mother at back door of house	Mother Walking to see Flowers		alt=Bench.JPG (20514 bytes)
My Mother Sitting in Her Chair

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