Remembering an October past <3

A number of years ago, Alzheimers Awareness Month fell in October. I guess they moved it to June this year and maybe longer ago than that. 

For me October is a time when I remember my own father entering the final stages of this horrible disease in October of 2010. My mother had been gone almost two years when he no longer was able to walk or eat solid foods. 

I wrote this one night after leaving him and sitting in the car in tears. 

I share it just about every year, but it still matters much to me as I know others have either walked through it or are doing so now. 

So this is for all who have lost someone to this disease. I understand the grieving process is begun long before we finally say good bye for the last time. May God comfort your hearts and spirits as you work through it all. 

It really is the end.

A wheelchair replaces the bow-legged walk down the hall. Sweat pants and sweat shirt replace the soiled pants and button down shirt with the inevitable pocket to keep his notebook in. 

He isn’t angry, but he isn’t really happy either.

Just in a fog.

I think he knows me, but it’s hard to tell. Trying to make conversation, his words are nonsense. He is embarrassed because he couldn’t swallow his medicine and now it is a wet spot on his shirt. 

He looks at me, but doesn’t see. It isn’t like I wish he was the way he was before. That wasn’t any better. Just a different kind of awful. 

I don’t feel sorry for me. It hurts more than anyone can know, but I don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t feel sorry for him either. 

It’s just another part of life for both of us.

Another part that seems hard and cruel, but it’s really just another part. And in the midst of it there are sweet things.

Things like a fall pumpkin he made in crafts. 

It’s obvious he had a lot of help, but still he thinks he made it. When I tell him it is beautiful, and I really mean it because it is, he thanks me in his own way. Though the words make no sense, I can tell by the way he moves his head what he is saying. 

When I think of how my mom was spared the pain of this, I can’t stop thanking God. I can’t think of anything but how thankful I am to Him that she never had to see this.

I am thankful it is not my sister.

I am thankful it is me. 

When I leave, I tell him I love him, and miracle of all miracles he forms real words. “Me too.” I ask him if he means he loves me or he loves himself, and he laughs.

I am going to believe he got the joke.

The laugh and the pumpkin are enough for today. God’s grace poured out for one more visit, tangible in a fall decoration on the seat next to me as I pull out of the parking lot to head home.

Tomorrow will bring another dose of grace for that day.

Tonight the tears flow from my tiredness.

Tomorrow will bring new mercies.