Absolutely nothing prepared my family and me for the moment when we had to acknowledge that the mind of our best friend would be forever stolen from us.
That moment came at different times for each of us. For me, months of denial culminated in the bitter truth. The reality, that no amount of supplements, hydration or rest would cure what ailed my mom, Lynette Bruce, was like having an out-of-body experience. The “ostrich option” was no longer available to me.
I vividly remember the moment that pained and confused me.
For all kinds of cliche, corny reasons, Christmas at my childhood family home was everything. The loss of my grandmother, the family’s matriarch, at 96, in 2011, threatened to erode many of our precious Christmas family traditions.
It was my mom who ensured that the family stayed together, and took over the responsibilities that she and granny had shared together. She handled it all. We supported, but she took the lead.
In the ensuing years, she suffered what her doctors described as a series of mini-strokes, and eventually a more substantive one in 2015; but miraculously recovered from that one as well, with mobility, speech and memory intact.
But we recognised that she could no longer handle things as well as she thought, so we began to deliberately lighten her load.
By the time the 2016 Christmas season came, we decided she should no longer be burdened with the stressful aspects of holiday preparation, so she spent that pre-Christmas week at my home. Every detail of the week’s activities was planned. A beach day, downtown sightseeing, leisurely drives, movies, a dinner outing, and we finished up with a day at the mall.
Returning from the mall, armed with a phone full of pictures to time-stamp our outing, my husband excitedly approached her to ask about her day.
Her response almost floored me.
Luke: “So how was your day?
Mom: “Oh, just wonderful!”
Luke: “Where did Cher take you today?”
Mom: “Boy, I have no idea...”
Luke and I looked at each other, unable to process this moment.
I quietly retreated to the bedroom and the tears flowed. We were now staring head-on into the face of Alzheimer’s.
[caption id="attachment_1035713" align="alignnone" width="1020"] Cheryl Metivier with her mom Lynette Bruce. -[/caption]
Luke immediately launched into research mode, sharing dozens of YouTube videos on the topic.
But it was too much for me, and too soon. Viewing those videos would be an admission that my mother was a casualty of this undignified disease. I wasn’t ready.
It was as if that defining moment gave way to accelerated confusion. She was constantly forgetting where she was. She would whisper to me, “Cher, whose house is this, girl? We have to go home just now?”
Eventually the time came to take her home. On the drive from my home to Moruga that Thursday before Christmas, Mom didn’t recognise much of what should have been familiar territory to her. She was mostly lost.
I took her into the house and settled her in. She was happy to be back in her familiar environme
