Moments with my mom
I have been sitting on this blog for a few months now. A good friend of mine set it up and it’s been waiting for me to start writing. I have been finding it hard to start, to figure out how to begin. I have had this blog in my brain for so long, with so many ideas, and yet still couldn’t pull the plug so to speak. Then I realized that maybe I can start by sharing my moments with mom stories as a way to honor and remember her as well as raise funds for an event that I am going to be participating in.
On September 24th I am going to be hiking the Grouse Grind in an event called the Climb for Alzheimer’s. The Grouse Grind is a challenging 2.5-kilometre trail on the shores of North Vancouver. It has been probably 30 years since I have done this hike and something tells me that now at 50, it might take me just a little bit longer to complete. I am up for the challenge though and even though it is a steep climb of 800 meters, it really does represent the mountain that many people tackle each day living with Alzheimer’s Disease. Here is the link if you would like to make a donation : Moments with Mom
So I have decided that for the next month to get my writing juices flowing, I am going to focus on sharing stories of my mom. You will get snippets of who she was, how Alzheimer’s effected her, and my perspective of what it was like for me as I walked beside her. I want these blog posts to hopefully shed some light on Alzheimer’s as well as hopefully provide some insights that could potentially help others who are supporting a loved one through this awful disease.
One of the things that I have reflected a lot on over the last 10+ years is I wish that I had seen some of the signs of Alzheimer’s earlier. The reality is that I did actually see them, I just wasn’t sure how to deal with it, what resources were out there to help, and what it all really meant. There was a lot of denial from her and sometimes not enough push from me to get to the bottom of what was really going on. It was the beginning of a huge role reversal that in reality both of us were not ready for. She wanted to be my mom, the caregiver, the nurturer, the grandma, and I still needed her to be the one I went to for support and guidance about parenting, marriage, and everything else about life. We both didn’t want things to change.
It was in July of 2012 when we were up in Parksville celebrating the life of my grandfather, with family when I knew we couldn’t keep ignoring the signs. The conversations were repetitive, some simple everyday things seemed more frustrating for her, and I really noticed that she was not able to come up with words to describe certain things. We went for a walk along the beach, the sun was setting, the kids were running around and she seemed so happy. It was easy to forget that there was something we hadn’t quite named yet going on. I wanted to freeze that moment rather than have to face what neither of us wanted to face. It’s why this photo of my mom and I up in Parksville is one of my favorites. It was a moment in time that captured what we wanted rather than what was happening. The moments of life…..they are the many paragraphs of our continuous story.
My mom and I up in Parksville in 2012