Terry and His Wife's Story About Alzheimer's Disease

Please note that this is a personal story submitted by an About.com reader.

Terry Sanville has sent me this fictionalised story about the experiences he and his wife are having with his mother who has Alzheimer's disease.

The couple stands over the telephone in their sun-splashed dining room. A warm Los Angeles breeze blows through an open window. John brushes at the billowing lace curtains and listens intently.
“Is she still on the line?” Bonnie asks her husband.
He grins and shakes his head. “She went to do something in the kitchen. I can hear pots and pans banging and lots of ‘GD-this’ and ‘GD-that.’”
“MAMA! MAMA!” he yells into the phone. Getting no response he gently sets the receiver in its cradle. “She did it again.”
“That’s the third time this week,” Bonnie says and chuckles.
“How can anyone forget they’re talking on the phone? Jeez, when I was little Mom used to gab with Lillian down the street and cook dinner at the same time.”
“Lillian’s been gone since right after Watergate,” Bonnie says.
“I remember when Ma ordered her first pink princess phone. Boy, that saleslady sure had her number. My Pop wouldn’t even talk into the thing… used the black wall phone in the garage.”
“Not manly enough, huh?” Bonnie cracks.
“Ma was in her ‘pink period.’ It was the late ’50s, ya know, the Sandra Dee and Connie Francis era.”

John smiles and thinks about how his mother single-handedly wallpapered his sister’s bedroom with a pink rosebud print and hung pink curtains. Then it was pink towels and bath mats…and finally the pink phone. Around that time his father started taking him fishing at the Santa Monica Pier… as if he was afraid all that pink would make John queer.
“Can’t we buy her a cell phone?” Bonnie asks. “Maybe that would…”
“Nah, she’d just lose it. Remember where we found the car keys?”
“Heck, remember where we found the car?” The couple breaks into giggles but their smiles quickly fade.

“We’ve got to do something, John. I think maybe it’s time for Emma to take a vacation.”
“But she’s been in that house sixty years…how the heck are we going to convince…”
“We just need to take advantage of her…her condition.”
“Sounds pretty iffy,” John grumbles.
“She’ll worry less that way.”
“Yeah, you’re right. But lying to my own mother…”

Emma Peterson nudges the bedroom curtains aside and peeks out the window at the middle-aged couple crossing her front lawn. That tall skinny man looks a lot like John, she thinks, only he’s too old and not nearly as handsome. I can’t place the woman. There’s a loud thump on the front door. Emma checks her makeup in the hall mirror, tucks in renegade yellow-streaked gray hairs, and opens the door on the chain.
“Yes, can I help you?” she asks cheerily.
“It’s us, Ma. You can let us in,” the man says.
“Hi, Emma. How are you feeling today?” the woman asks, loose red curls bouncing as she speaks.
“I’m very well, thank you.” Emma smiles, showing off gleaming white dentures, but only the upper plate. She stares at the couple. Maybe they’re Jehovah’s Witnesses. They should know by now I’m Lutheran and don’t need saving.

“Open the door, Mom, let us in,” John says.
Emma’s eyes widen. She hurriedly complies. “I’m so sorry, I forgot…you kids were…”
“We tried talking with you on the phone this morning,” John says and smiles, “but you got busy in the kitchen?”
“Yes, yes. I was making cookies so the neighborhood children don’t go without. It’s getting’ close to Halloween and…”
“Mom, it’s just past the Fourth of July. Remember the barbeque we went to at the Salters?”
“Of course.” A frown adds more wrinkles to Emma’s face. “They’ve been our dear friends ever since Jack and I came out from Newark. My son used to go to school with their…”
“Mrs. Peterson, this is your son,” Bonnie says and hugs John.
“Lord, don’t you think I know that?” The color rises in Emma’s cheeks. “Come and sit down and we’ll sample my chunky peanut butter. They’re just out of the oven.” She shuffles off to the kitchen.

John moves to the wall-mounted thermostat and turns it back to something less than the “broil” setting. Emma returns with a tray holding a plate of cookies and delicate demitasse teacups and saucers, but no tea. They sit on the sofa.
“Bonnie thought you might need help with the baking,” John says and crunches into a cookie with a coal black bottom.
“Who is…that?” Emma asks uncertainly.
“I’m Bonnie, your son’s wife.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I guess I need another cup of tea to wake up. I can’t seem to get my wits about me as quick as I used to.”
“I’m the same way… just ask John,” Bonnie says. “So tell me, is this your favorite cookie recipe?”

Read on to page 2