Gary Brown: Rembering Mom's 'long goodbye'

Alzheimer's Disease – dementia, as such conditions causing the loss of cognitive functioning are generically called – is termed "the long goodbye."

Such a moniker is rightfully claimed, reported Pennsylvania writer Brad Hundt in an article published several years ago in the Observer-Post newspaper near Pittsburgh. The piece was accurate enough in its assessment that it was posted in 2014 at the website for University of Pittsburgh's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

Alzheimer's, and other memory-stealing medical conditions, "slowly progresses," Hundt wrote, and as it does "the components of an individual’s personality are worn away along with their cognitive skills and memory."

"Usually, near the end, they no longer even speak. Their body declines, but the pace of their cognitive decline is speedier. Usually, by the time someone with Alzheimer’s disease dies, the traits, tendencies and abilities the person possessed have long since departed."

The farewell they offer indeed is lengthy.

But, those departing moments they still are with us nevertheless can be cherished.

Mother spent years 'leaving'

Both friends and family members have suffered from dementia, but the closest relationship I've had with anyone enduring such cognitive loss was the love I shared with my mother, who declined in health during a number of years.

I noticed that decline first in phone calls. My mother always was the one who spoke most frequently on phone calls. Over time, my father's voice became more predominate. Finally, Dad began to speak for my mother when she hesitated to answer a question.

The subsequent time it took her to leave her loved ones was spent at home being supported by my father and her children and in a health care facility being cared for in her final years by medical professionals.

By my last weeklong visit home to western New York, Mom, who still lived in her house, engaged in limited conversation. Her smile seemed to signal that she knew I was someone she should care about, but she never called me by name. She struggled to find words for the simplest things. She called the pet I brought with me "the black thing," while failing to remember the animal – one who sought her out and laid beside her when I left the house – was a dog.

"Oh, you're taking the black thing?" she was able to ask, days later, when she saw me packing up my pet's food and water dishes for our trip back to Ohio.

I tried to explain that, yes, my dog was going with me, but I would be bringing her back for visits. I spoke until I felt a hand gently touching my arm.

My mother's eyes met mine as she uttered her words – a blessing, I believe – which were the final words that she ever spoke directly to me.

"You know I love you."

Seeking help with her care

Mom's speech declined rapidly after that visit. Her care was taking its toll on my father, who was forced to seek help from those who knew best how to satisfy the needs of individuals with dementia.

Still, Mom was not left without family. Dad would go to the facility and visit Mom daily, sitting with her for hours to talk to her or just make her aware of his presence in her life. My sister arrived after work in the evening to help feed her at dinner time. My younger brother, who worked at an adjacent affiliated hospital, kept a constant vigil in overseeing her care. My older brother, who lived in Mississippi, and I journeyed home to visit as often as we could.

There were brief moments of simulated normalcy during those visits. We would sit in a secluded section of the lobby for family conversations, even if she wasn't one of the ones engaged directly in talking.

Occasionally she would speak. They were random thoughts, directed at anyone who was within earshot.

"I think I'll just put this over there," she once decided, after neatly folding the little towel that nurses let her carry around, folding and unfolding, because they believed she was reliving the folding of all the clothes she had washed in some long ago period of her life.

Such moments are gifts to a family in that "long goodbye."

And then Pop passed. So, there came the days when he didn't visit Mom. Apparently, somewhere deep in her mind she was aware of his sudden absence and had come to terms with it in a way we never will know.

All we can be sure of is that one day not long after Dad's death, during the hours in which he normally would have been at her side, Mom rested her hand on a nurse's arm, and looking directly at her gave a hint of her private knowledge in a soft voice.

"I know where he went," she simply said.

If there is any darkness to those words as they passed over my mother's lips, she instantly lightened the mood with her smile.

Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com. On Twitter: @gbrownREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Gary Brown: Rembering Mom's 'long goodbye'