“Two lovebirds, that was the image I had of my parents. Everyone sees such couples on the street or in the park: those sweet old couples who walk hand in hand so caringly and tenderly, looking at each other lovingly and still joking and having fun. This is how we all want to grow old with our partner. I thought it was for my parents. Unfortunately, Alzheimer’s slowly crept into my mother’s house and threw a spanner in the works.
It just seemed old age
As a daughter, I didn’t want to see or hear it at first. Dad had already mentioned that Mama was sometimes very absent, that she was often up at night for hours, wandering through the house and there was no way he could get her back into bed. Before then, Mom was often forgetful. But yes, sometimes I am. Is it also allowed when you are elderly, that you sometimes have to search for words, can’t remember what day of the week it is or forget what you ate last night? I also know that older people often sleep much shorter or suffer from insomnia. Of course it haunted my mind for a while that my 80-year-old mother might be suffering from dementia. I quickly pushed that thought away. There was no one else in her family with Alzheimer’s and besides, she had always been healthy, always sporty and always very busy. I grouped it all under the heading of ‘old age’.
She walked away from home in pajamas
Until the time I had Dad crying on the phone. Mama had run off in her pajamas that morning. The moment he went to run an errand, my mother just walked out of the house without showering and dressing. She wasn’t gone for long: an observant passer-by saw her confused on the street and immediately realized that something was wrong. Mama no longer knew where she lived and was taken to the police station by two officers. Meanwhile, my father and I were still in ignorance. After I had him completely upset on the phone, I called the police. That’s where I heard that mom had been found. The reassurance I felt was short-lived. My mother was in all states when my father and I came to pick her up at the police station. I will never forget that image, just as I will never forget the enormous powerlessness I felt at the time.
Untenable situation at home
Things got tough after this incident. She appeared to have had delirium. At the hospital, she had a brain scan and a cerebrospinal fluid puncture, which showed that she has Alzheimer’s. Going to a nursing home was not an option because of the long waiting times. My father didn’t want to know anything about ‘getting rid’ of his wife. He would never let his girl go to a home, he said. Only when he woke up in the morning and the hallway was flooded because my mother had turned on all the taps during the night, it was clear that he could no longer handle the 24-hour care. After an urgent phone call from the GP, my mother was permanently admitted to a nursing home.
In love with another
My mother has been doing wonderfully well ever since, my father is only a shadow of the man he once was. In the home where my mother lives there are many lovely volunteers. She is taken for a walk, coffee is drunk and there are music afternoons. Still, my father can’t let go of the care for her. He visits her every day, does her laundry and helps her with food. My mother is no longer my mother. She doesn’t recognize him and me. She thinks I’m her mother and she sees my father as her little brother. Meanwhile, there is a new man in her life whom she adores: Jan, a resident in her department. She tells whole stories about him to anyone who wants to hear it. That they went to the cinema together, that she sat on the back of his moped, that his parents don’t like her. Both my father and I thought it was her rich imagination. Until I spoke to my aunt, my mother’s younger sister. She told me that my mother used to date Jan for two years, from the age of sixteen to eighteen. My mother was a Protestant girl of peasant descent, Jan was a Catholic boy of wealthy parents. That was clearly not how his parents had envisioned it and eventually Jan ended the relationship, my aunt told me. Even my father had never heard of Jan. Apparently my mother has buried her pain deeply and now seems to be back to the strong feelings she once had for Jan.
He wishes her luck
I find it so painful to see: my father who wants to give my mother a kiss on the mouth while she turns her head away. He sometimes seems like a complete stranger to her, while he has to hear how fond she is of Jan. She doesn’t even notice him when he comes in with a bag full of clean laundry, she always seeks Jan’s proximity. The nurses often put them together next to each other in the common room. Yet I see a change in my father. Not in his love for her, which is still undiminished. I see that he is consciously looking for bright spots in this situation. “She was always so confused and sad,” he said to me one afternoon. “Now she is still confused, but luckily she is no longer sad. I never knew about her courtship with Jan and I can only be happy for her that she relives the beautiful moments. I had sixty beautiful years with her, much longer than she and Jan had. I can only wish her Alzheimer’s brought her to a place where she is also happy.’ When I heard that, I hugged my father. He showed me that true love is unconditional. That is the best example he could give me.”