I lived with my mother from 1984 to 1990, as the illness slowly took its toll. It was appalling to watch her change right in front of me. She didn’t just forget things. She became a different person—one whom I did not recognize. When my boyfriend would watch television, she’d walk in circles around his chair, muttering under her breath and scowling. She kept a hammer hidden in her room and wielded it at the slightest provocation. If she got out of the house, she’d refuse toe back in. Instead, she would run down the street, calling for the police to help her. She’de to believe that she was a police officer—a conviction touched off by a letter inviting her to take the civil service test. Only another police officer could convince her toe into the house.
This is not my mother, I would tell myself. My mother had no interest in men;this person called men over to her window. My mother never cried, yet this woman broke into tears at the slightest thing. My mother always appeared polite and good-natured. This woman was quick-tempered and slightly paranoid. She moved magazines, silverware, dishes, and clothing around the house. When I asked about the objects, she’d be angry and yell at me for thinking she had done something wrong. She told me that other people, not she, had moved these things.
“Come here,” she’d say forcefully, grabbing my hand and pulling me into her room. “Listen. Do you hear them? They took it.”
To learn more about the disease, my sister and I attended groups for f***lies of Alzheimer’s patients. We learned not to blame my mother for things she said or did. The Alzheimer’s was talking, not her.
As the disease progressed, my mother grew frightened. She’d say. “What’s happening to me? Why can’t I remember?”
Before Alzheimer’s, my mother never admitted fear or sadness to me. Now, she became strangely free with her emotions, crying when frightened, expressing anger when furious, and laughing when exhilarated. As I released my perceptions of who my mother was supposed