Last Lists of My Mad Mother

Last year at the gallery, a friend stopped in and asked if we would be willing to host a play, with seating for about 30 people. The play was of a woman with Alzheimer's Disease and her two daughters. I'd lost my mother to complications of Alzheimer's Disease just a little less than a year before. There was no doubt about hosting the play, the doubt was whether or not I could deal with it.

As it turns out, Last Lists of My Mad Mother was a wonderful, heartwarming, hilarious, and sad story. The actors were superb, and most of the audience held it together in fine fashion, until one moment, the definitive moment in Mother's life when "the roof of her mind collapsed."

This horrible disease robs the human it inflicts of every last shred of dignity a person could possibly hope to cling to. Bit by bit. Memory by memory. Word by word.

I've had patients with Alzheimer's. One lady was absolutely the most stubborn, difficult woman I've ever run into. She'd fight with me, try to yank my hair out and pull my toenails out with it. The staff had to restrain her while I changed her dressings. It was one visit I did not enjoy making, ever...

...until one day, I walked in and the lady was listening to some music, sitting completely upright, clapping her hands, singing and smiling. What a profound difference. I realized at that moment, she'd once had a happy life, but this awful disease took that from her. This was the only time I saw her experiencing anything but extreme anger. She looked like an angel, and almost sang like one--but she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

Still, with that white hair, that huge smile, she was an angel.

Not long after, the adult care home staff called to let me know she'd been transferred to hospice. I called, and as she had no family, the hospice RN's kept me updated. They called me and said, "Come soon."

I did go, and sat with her, stroking her pretty white hair, remembering a smiling face, and a terribly sung song, and felt the sigh of an angel.