The rain is drumming on the rental car as I drive my mom home from the restaurant, through the suburban northern New Jersey roads I know well because I have practiced driving them. Getting lost or making a wrong turn can make my mom uncomfortable.
It's the time of evening when she has the most difficulty keeping track of what's going on around her.
"Where are we going?" she asks.
"I'm taking you home."
"Where's that?"
"The Cupalo," I say, referring to the assisted living center she has called home for not quite four years. "It's just a few minutes up the road here."
"Oh, OK," she says.
My mom has Alzheimer's disease. Her diagnosis a few years back wasn't surprising to my
(Rick Nease/MCT)
two sisters and me; we had been noticing for some time that she was forgetting and neglecting things. Our father died a decade ago, and with us kids scattered across the country, my mom was living alone. We tried a number of things, but after a few scary close calls -- including my mom getting lost for hours in the woods near her aunt's house, a place she had been to at least a hundred times -- we made the painful decision to place her in assisted living.
It was painful because she didn't want to live there and mostly because my sisters and I had long been used to our mother being the smartest person in the room. She loved to travel, read, go to the theater and to concerts, attend book clubs and manage her financial portfolio. Now, for
the most part, she can't appreciate any of those things.
But all is not a void for her, at least not yet. She still recognizes us, still seems genuinely happy to see us, still enjoys going out to dinner and taking walks in the park. So I go visit her every chance I get, because I never know when the visits will cease to have meaning for her.
She is sharper during the day, when she clearly remembers all of us, and can share the memories that her disease hasn't yet stolen from her -- many of which are about her growing up in New Jersey, just a few miles from where she lives now.
She even occasionally flashes the sharp humor I have always loved about her.
One day this past spring, I took her to a park near her residence. We had a picnic lunch and were walking around the large pond there, having a blast feeding the ducks, who swarmed ravenously upon every chunk of stale bread we tossed out. They'd even snatch a morsel out of your hand, if you were brave enough to let them.
We came upon a man napping on a lawn chair, clad in nothing but a very small Speedo bathing suit. He was not a small man. It was not a pretty sight.
My mom shook her head.
"I've got an idea," she said. "Let's toss some bread on him and see what happens."
I cackled at the thought. Good one, Mom.
Night is not kind
At night, however, she's not the same. Maybe it's the glass of wine she has with dinner, which she enjoys, or the lateness of the day, or the fact that it's dark -- the "sundowning" effect -- or maybe it's a combination of all these factors. But I can feel her struggling quietly to glean where she is, what she's doing and what's expected of her. It must be exhausting.
So as we're driving home from the restaurant, my mom asks again, "Where are we going?"
"I'm taking you home, Mom. We're almost there."
"Where's that?"
"The Cupalo, your home."
"And where are you staying, with me?"
"No, I'm at a hotel nearby."
Then I remind her that this is my last night in New Jersey, that I'm flying home to San Francisco in the morning.
"San Francisco?" she asks. "I have a son out there. He works for a newspaper."
I shift in my seat. This is a new one. Hearing my mom talk to me, about me, as if I were 3,000 miles away is unsettling.
"Do you know him?" she asks.
I have no idea how to respond, but I am emboldened by the thought that whatever I say won't stay with her very long.
"Yeah, I know him."
"He's a good man. He's done well for himself," she says.
"Well, I'm sure you had something to do with that."
"Oh, I don't know ..."
"I hear he's really good to his mother."
My mom glances at me with a slightly scolding smile, as if to show she knows I'm teasing her.
"Well, he'd better be," she quips.
As I'm driving back to the hotel later, my heart sinks at the thought of my mom taking another small step away from me, away from her children, away from the shrinking world that used to bring her so much pleasure.
I know there will be more days like this. Alzheimer's is a vicious, one-way disease. And I know the blows it inflicts on her and us will become increasingly harsh and painful. But what can I do except, wring every ounce of joy that her company still affords? What can I do, except try to keep her smiling and cracking wise when I'm around, to be her good son from San Francisco?
She's my mom. She deserves nothing less.
Contact Randy McMullen at rmcmullen@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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