Priorities in an Alzheimer’s World

Mother would sit in her rocking chair beside the kitchen stove reading the newspaper, a magazine or a book as she rested between chores on the farm.  The sink might be piled with dirty dishes, the kitchen table needed to be set for supper. A basket of clothes should be sorted or ironing done.  A kitten poked its head from beneath the stove.  Old Shep lay at her feet.   

Mother looked around, “I know.  There’s work to do.  But it will always be there.  And I won’t always have time to read.”

It was frustrating for a teenager and later a young married woman when I came home to visit and found Mother still reading and getting to the dishes “when she had time.”

However, in later years, as I cared for her through Alzheimer’s, I was glad Mother had taken time to read.  She didn’t know that she would get Alzheimer’s and no longer could read.  However, while she was able, she enjoyed her reading time, taking minutes (even an hour)  from housework and other tasks.  Far into her Alzheimer’s journey, Mother turned the pages of magazines and tried to form the words.  She still discussed books and authors and asked me what I was writing until she could no longer speak.

So when a family member has habits you find frustrating, consider whether it’s extremely important that you correct or criticize.  Sometimes, yes, changes are necessary.  But look at the long range scheme of things, and realize, as I have, that priorities take on a different aspect when we consider them from an Alzheimer’s world. 

 I’m glad Mother had the pleasure of reading when she could. 

           And some of the reading she enjoyed and reminisced about were stories she read to my sister, brothers and me as children and later to grandchildren.  This is Mother reading that has a place in my memories, too.