the longest goodbye

How do you say goodbye to someone who doesn’t know you’re saying goodbye? Hate Alzheimer’s. Hate it, hate it, hate it! When Mrs. Reagan called it the long goodbye, she wasn’t preaching to the choir. Those of us who have been intimately involved with the devastating effects of this disease suffer from another type of grief, a stage beyond the normal, because this is an ending that seems to have no end. We are told that in the midst of life we are in death. I get that. But this kind of death just goes on and on and on. There are memories, yes, but none recent. This year there was a Mother’s Day card that was read to her by those around her and perhaps she hugged to her chest but her lucid moments were so few and far between that the words on the card could never truly be shared. Alzheimer’s is a thief; it robs our loved ones of the ability to love us back. And, that, to me, is the saddest aspect of all.