lazygood4nothinbum
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2006
- Messages
- 3,895
as i've almost obsessively noted by now (i am after all an admitted momma's boy), mom amazed me in many ways. one of the most remarkable aspects was how she seemed to show a sense of self all the way through alzheimer's disease even until her brain became so destroyed that it shut her organs down and she died.
i remember at the time thinking that during the decade or more of seeing this disease destroy her, especially towards the end, it was like watching her move herself in advance of the destruction to remaining sections of her brain to keep functioning as well as she did under such circumstance.
she could reach in and out even while her brain was being decimated by alzheimer's to continue such loving contact that it still brings tears to my eyes today. i've related this before, but it is relevant here as it exemplifies the point, that one day in her very last months, after she had lost the ability to use words, she was very busy mumbling to me with such a serious face that i said to her: "mom, i can't understand you. i can tell you have something important to say but when you talk it is just sounds, not words." she had the sound of sentence structure but no words that could be deciphered, just unintelligible garble. i said "i'm so sorry this has happened to you."
i could see the struggle in her face as she gathered what strength she could muster and spoke like i hadn't heard in such a while and would never hear again real words fall from her lips: "i'm...sorry...for you," she said. i started to cry and then she went back into her garbling.
but mom was still there. still racing the advancing & inevitable destruction.
i happened to catch the other night a good program being run this month on pbs on brain fitness and neuro-plasticity.
here is a trailer YouTube - The Brain Fitness Program PBS 16x9 NEW Trailer
i remember at the time thinking that during the decade or more of seeing this disease destroy her, especially towards the end, it was like watching her move herself in advance of the destruction to remaining sections of her brain to keep functioning as well as she did under such circumstance.
she could reach in and out even while her brain was being decimated by alzheimer's to continue such loving contact that it still brings tears to my eyes today. i've related this before, but it is relevant here as it exemplifies the point, that one day in her very last months, after she had lost the ability to use words, she was very busy mumbling to me with such a serious face that i said to her: "mom, i can't understand you. i can tell you have something important to say but when you talk it is just sounds, not words." she had the sound of sentence structure but no words that could be deciphered, just unintelligible garble. i said "i'm so sorry this has happened to you."
i could see the struggle in her face as she gathered what strength she could muster and spoke like i hadn't heard in such a while and would never hear again real words fall from her lips: "i'm...sorry...for you," she said. i started to cry and then she went back into her garbling.
but mom was still there. still racing the advancing & inevitable destruction.
i happened to catch the other night a good program being run this month on pbs on brain fitness and neuro-plasticity.
here is a trailer YouTube - The Brain Fitness Program PBS 16x9 NEW Trailer