On My Mother’s Passing
This is the hardest blog post for me to write, and one that I need to write. There is so much to say, though words seem trivial in light of the incredible value of each person’s life. But Spirit keeps nudging me to write this.
I want to honor my mother’s passing, which happened unexpectedly about a month ago. She lived a long and generally happy life of 92 years. She was married to my father for 71 years. He’d fallen in love with her at first sight, for he found her beautiful and vivacious. They were true soul mates, rarely apart from each other their whole marriage.
He died three years and one day before she did, just as the pandemic had launched. For his death, we were unable to grieve with the supportive hugs, flowers, food and love that a funeral provides — because we’d all just gone into lockdown. Thankfully for my mom’s death, we were able to have a religious service and lean into the abundant love of friends and family.
A Learning Curve
During the three years after Dad’s death, my mother carried on her journey of Alzheimer’s without my fathers devoted and protective help. She had never, ever lived alone, for she went from her mother’s home to marriage with my father at age 18.
In retrospect, I see that the often angry, rebellious personality that emerged after my dad died, was perhaps a delayed adolescence as much as it was the mysterious, heart-breaking disease of Alzheimer’s. She had to undergo a massive learning curve to make up for the decades she had never been on her own. It was hard for her and very hard for us, her daughters, but so often she surprised us with the durable spark of life strongly blazing within her.
In the last few months of my father’s life, my sisters and I had scrambled to establish 24-hour caregivers for our parents, as it became clear how progressed Mom’s Alzheimer’s had gotten, and how much she was in denial of her own disease and my father’s rapid decline.
It was shocking even to me, at the time, that my strong-willed and strong-bodied father was not going to rebound this time (he had survived two heart attacks and 3 different episodes of cancers)…and that my sisters and I would suddenly need to handle my mother’s life and health on our own.
Alzheimer’s in the time of Covid-19
Because of the cognitive confusion of Alzheimer’s, my mom never really comprehended that the pandemic was robbing all of us, not just her, of the many pleasures in life that we had taken for granted — going to movies, theater, restaurants, big family gatherings, parties with friends and more. All Mom knew was that she felt lonely, angry, deprived of good times, and frustrated with all the many doctor visits and constant reality of covid-19 masks, vaccinations, news, and fear. Daily, she complained, and we didn’t have the slightest ability to help her think logically about anything or console her. We worried terribly about her, and dealt with the many hard challenges of her condition.
On the other hand, in the midst of the personality and cognitive changes of Alzheimer’s, along with Mom’s ultra-angry side, there was a frisky, teenager-like self that emerged; she could be quite flirtatious with a few elderly men in the independent living facility where she lived. To our surprise, she actually had a brief, but wild affair some time after my dad died. She became more of a free spirit. She dressed beautifully, in rich colors, with matching necklaces -- always artistically put together. In fact, she suddenly started planning to display the artwork she’d done in earlier years, and took great pride in the paintings she continued to create until the last 6 months of her life.
My Own Growth
To say that I personally had to grow emotionally and spiritually in the last years of my mother’s life, would be an understatement. Any of my lingering hurts, judgements, and childish resentments about Mom, still slightly smoldering under my many years of adulting and spiritual growth work — all that got shoved to the surface for exploration, healing and ultimately, release.
Truth is, I was often triggered by my mother, due to the negative personality changes of Alzheimers and the phenomenon of denial and resistance, which was part of her disease. It could be heart-breaking as well as provoking at times; and I didn’t like the reactive sides of myself that sometimes erupted in the face of her moods. I had to find a lot of patience and compassion for Mom’s struggles, and my own struggles with being the object, at times, of her anger.
Any illusions I held that I would never grow old, sick, or completely dependent— and need to rely on the kindness of strangers— were exploded in the storm clouds of my mother’s Alzheimer’s. It gradually forced me to accept that if this could happen to her, surely it could happen to me. And while I’ve come to accept it, I am still learning how to live fully, with faith and courage, in light of any possible inevitability.
The Strength of the Spirit
I saw that even when Mom had become so totally dependent and wheel-chair bound, and medicated enough so that the anger gave way to sweetness again, the strong endurance of her spirit far outshined her physical and cognitive impairments.
What I remember now is how, in her last months, when I’d come to visit her in memory care, she’d always take my hand and bring it to her mouth, kissing my hand with incredible tenderness and love. I cherish those last four months now. As terribly hard as it was to witness and experience her decline, I feel deeply blessed by the gifts of her abiding love. I can feel her love in my heart.
While there’s good cause to feel depressed by so much hatred, injustice, and violence nowadays, I’m also inspired by the huge, compassionate hearts of those who daily sustained the life of my mother, and guided and supported her daughters with kindness.
The Profound Essence of Life
