Finding Peace of Mind With a Mother’s Waning Abilities
This is one thing one woman and her sisters have done to find some peace of mind in dealing with their mother’s waning abilities.
During one of our monthly gathering calls for women who have a parent with Alzheimer’s I connected with Alexandra Van Horn, who told us about the book she and her sisters wrote together about their mother.
Her 
mother’s book, Jessie’s Book, A Mother’s Teachings To Her Daughters, “was a healing, collaborative way for us (the 4 daughters) to remember Mom in her vibrant, ‘in your face’, ‘ruling the roost’ days.
“The process of remembering her as she was helped to refresh our minds, to not let her current diminishing cognitive abilities reign supreme in our thoughts.
“As we brainstormed, there were many healing moments for us–chuckling on the phone across the miles at some of Mom’s sayings and attitudes from our early years.
“I felt that the process broke us out of our ‘melancholy’ over the current situation and transported us back in time to our childhood and teen years. I know as the editor of the book, I felt a deep sense of connection to my mother.
“It’s almost as though I could recreate her and say to the world, “Look, this is who she really is. She is vibrant and witty! The sun is still shining behind the clouds!” To me creating a book in her honor has an immortalizing effect on her essence.
“The book is very simple, but for me there is such great power in the simplicity. Even as I write this, I can recall her coaching me with my composition assignments!”
Thank you Alexandra, for sharing this profound way of preserving the legacy of your mother’s wisdom and personality!
Sometimes our scrapbooks are filled with photos and some memorabilia, but how often do we capture all those wonderful things our mother used to say? This is an idea that I’d like to implement. How about you?
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Comments
I am grateful you wrote this book. I spent time assisting my mother-in-law when she broke her hip and spent the last part of her life in bed. She helped raise me and about 30 other children until she was over 80! She was always caring for babies until they began school. She was the most loving, forgiving person I knew growing up.
Once she began having hallucinations and so they gave her shock treatments when I was young. Now decades later, as she lay in bed, they gave her many medications which brought back these symptoms, which had been gone all this time. One moment she was totally normal and the next she would ask you what you were doing, endlessly, dozens of times for an hour or so! Then she would imagine a fire and go crazy!! She would see dust that did not exist and want us to clean it away! (She kept a sparkling house and all her pots and pans always looked new!) It was a difficult job for someone to handle 24/7. In the beginning she was helped to the bathroom and later she had to remain in bed with diapers.
The entire experience turned into one gigantic drama from some sitcom! Family members and friends arguing about her state of mind. Some would visit and find nothing wrong and claim the rest of us were going mad! She demanded to pay her own bills and she could not even write a check. I will not go into details except to admit it was one of the most challenging experiences of my life, remaining loving and peaceful in the midst of it all. It was difficult experiencing her this way.
YES I intend to always remember her as she was before this happened. I remember her love, her endless compassion, her smile, her caring nature, and all thing things she taught me. She bought presents for everyone in the family and friends and neighbors on a budget, without a car and often by phone, or when someone happened to take her shopping. She was totally amazing!! She was an amazing cook and seamstress too. She had beautiful gardens and flowers. I still love her dearly even though she passed a few years ago.
I am so happy you wrote this book so other families can FOCUS ON the person THEY KNOW STILL LIVES INSIDE and simply can no longer express themselves in a way that is authentic and real, due to some physical and mental challenges. Any of us could be here tomorrow and I sincerely hope my family remembers who I am today and not what I might become if I became ill with something similar.
My great gratitude to all of you!
Endless love and appreciation, Morgine
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