My mom & her sisters at her 70th birthday party
My mom and I both have milestone birthdays this year. She is turning 80 and I’m turning 50.
Fifty years old!
When I was in my teens and even into my late 20’s, I thought 50 was ancient. I thought women in their 50’s were withered, dried up old ladies with nothing left in their life but grandchildren and playing bridge and dying.
Now that I’m staring down 50, I realize how wrong I was. I feel like I’m just getting started. I feel like I’m just finding my purpose in life and I am ready for all the big adventures headed my way. I don’t feel old and withered, but I do feel my mortality in a way I didn’t when I was young. I thought 50 was so many, many long years away when I was a kid that I didn’t stop to think about what it would feel like to get there. It was so far away, so why bother? But the years flew by so fast and now that I’m here, I can see all the years behind me and know that I’ve got a limited amount of them ahead of me. I might not have 50 more years, though I hope I do.
When my mom turned 50 my sister and I took her out for a day of torture. We went to the pharmacy and checked her heart rate in one of those machines. We went to a restaurant for lunch and asked if they had a “senior special” because our mom was “50 years old.”
We took her to get a free eye exam announcing to everyone that “our mom turned 50 YEARS OLD TODAY.”
I think we even signed her up for AARP. My mom was mortified. By the end of the day we were laughing, but our mom was not at all amused. Though I think she still might be a member of AARP. I’ve already prepped my kids that they are not allowed to do anything like this to me on my birthday.
When my mom turned 50 I thought she might as well pack it in, learn to knit and watch reruns of the Love Boat. But that was not her style. She’d been single for so long by this point that she had built a full life for herself. She volunteered, she worked, she had friends. And even into her 70’s, my mom kept so busy. She worked at the voting polls, she volunteered at the local artist’s repertory theater, she worked as a crossing guard at her grandson’s grade school and also went in and read books to the kids there. She drove around her friends who were unable to drive. She even worked at the Gap for years, because she needed the money and she liked meeting people.
My mom had a full life and I wonder what she would be doing right now if she didn’t have Alzheimer’s. She’d probably still read books to kids, she’d certainly be working the voting polls and though she might have picked up knitting, I don’t think she’d have any time for watching television. Except for the Hallmark channel at Christmastime.
My mom at her 70th birthday party
We had a surprise birthday party for my mom for her 70th birthday. It was a year before her brain hemorrhage. A year before she drove around her block so many times that a policeman pulled her over and questioned her because of the way she was driving. He thought she was drunk, but in reality, she’d just couldn’t remember how to get home. It was a year before she lost her car in the mall parking lot and security drove her around for an hour before she found it. It was the little things like this that started to add up to a bigger problem, but my mom kept to herself so much of the time that my sister and I didn’t know what was going on until it was too late. My sister would hear one story and I would hear another, but we didn’t talk to each other enough to realize that something much more serious was going on.
Not that we could have stopped it.
Alzheimer’s is a relentless disease and once it takes hold it takes a little bit every day. Some days it takes more, and some days it’s a real bitch and lulls you into thinking things are OK. But I know soon enough it’s going to get greedy and take more of my mom than I’m ready to let go of. There is no way to get ready for that.
I think really all this writing I’m doing is how I’m trying to cope with all the changes. If I can work through how I feel and my thoughts about my mom and all the changes and I can get it all out of my head, I can get myself as ready as I’ll ever be for what’s to come.
Things have been pretty even-keeled lately. For about two years my mom was angry all the time, and then for a while, she went from angry to crying and back again, but now, she’s got a pretty even mood. I think medication has helped, but she’s also reached a point where she forgets her words and before she can get upset about it, she completely forgets what she was trying to say in the first place and just moves on to something else. And when she doesn’t remember that either, she takes a heavy sigh and looks at me and smiles and says, “So how are you?” And then I pick up and talk for a while so she doesn’t have to.
At least she’s saying “so HOW are you?” instead of “so WHO are you?”
Those are the small things I’m grateful for.
I am currently raising money for the Portland, Oregon Walk to End Alzheimer’s in August 2018. I raised almost $900 last year and this year my goal is at least $1000. This badge tells you where I am at right now in my efforts. If you feel so inclined, please donate. Thanks.