Someone I love has Alzheimer's.
When I was much younger, my mother would take my two brothers and myself to visit folks in nursing homes. As soon as we walked in, the smell would envelope us. That's the smell of the last rest stop on the highway, the one that's right before journey's end. Smells like incontinence, medication, bad breathe. Some of the folks we visited were pleasant and cheerful. Others: not so much. Either way, we stayed and visited for a while and then left. We walked out the front door, closed it behind us and went home, leaving all the smell and the gloom behind us, feeling as though we'd left a little sunshine behind. On with our lives!
Now, the door doesn't close. Even though I don't see her as frequently as I feel that I should, the door is always open. It's not, "On with my life!" because she is part of my life. Her home used to smell like dinner cooking- always something cooking- clean laundry and her perfume. Now it smells like a nursing home. Alzheimer's is a frightening thing. It turns grown-ups back into children. It's the disintegration of a rational mind into repetitive questions and confusion. In this case, the spiral is accompanied by nervous energy and constant fidgeting movement. Can't be still. I see her scratching pieces of her skin away- pick, pick, pick- and I wonder if she's going crazy because she's inactive. All my life, she was busy, never still. Cooking, cleaning, going, shopping, visiting, more cooking. There was hardly ever a moment when there was nothing happening. And now, there is a dead stop, a screeching of brakes and a cessation of meaningful activity. No more cooking. She puts things on the stove and turns the burners up to "high" and forgets. She thinks she still cooks, not just for herself, but for others. It seems that her life has become that moment of, "I came in here for something... RATS. What WAS that I was going to DO?" We all do it. "It's right on the tip of my brain... wait... it will come back to me." And then it does. We remember and complete the task and move on. But for her, that moment of blankness has exploded and enveloped her whole life. "Now what was I doing...?" She has lost her purpose and there is no peace. She is a restless wanderer trapped in her body and limited by the deterioration of her mind. She is at home only among the very familiar: do not remove her from her environment. That is confusing and scary. At home, she can spend all day picking up and putting down the same pillow, straightening the same throw, rearranging the same floor mat, and still go to bed at night feeling as though she's had a busy and productive day. Her overriding emotion is discontent because she lives only in the present. There are pieces of the past, but not the whole puzzle. This new life is blanketed by a complete lack of Peace. There is no Peace. There is no "peace that passes understanding."
I see this and it breaks my heart. It also terrifies me because we are so similar. That nervous energy, the constant movement, going, going, going. I think if my sanity were chipped away from me, instead of slowing down, like a child's top stops spinning as it loses momentum, I would continue to turn, but lose meaning.
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?
Romans 7:24
A dying mind inside a body that still functions and needs care. What a living nightmare. Like the woman in Still Alice I would be tempted to put a plan in place to take my own life, rather than decay from the inside and cause my family such pain. There is so much love for her, but it doesn't seem to touch her because she's so lost inside herself. I wonder if there is another way. I wonder if someone can be so filled with the Peace of God that when the mind begins to slip away, the Peace comes and fills in the empty spaces. Instead of misery, peace. Or is this disease of the mind impervious to pre-existing faith? Can a person live through a slow death, beginning with the mind, and still be utterly and completely filled with joy?
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 7:25
Come, Lord Jesus.
