Thanks a Lot, Alzheimer’s — You Messed Me Up Too

Cripes, Alzheimer’s. Are you ever satisfied?

You finally killed my mom the other day. That I can take, oddly enough. People die, especially when they’re old, and my mom wasn’t immune. No one expected or demanded that she live forever.

But did you have to go after me too?

I always knew you specialized in disorientation, Alzheimer’s disease. Mental kidnapping. Confusion. I just figured your sights were trained solely on Mom and her brain. I didn’t realize you’d be getting into my head too.

But you are. Because thanks to you, Alzheimer’s, though I know my mom is gone forever, I have no idea when she actually left. I’m not sure she even died, really; she just wandered off somewhere, sometime, somehow. Like a few of our cats did growing up. Do you know how disconcerting that is, Alzheimer’s?

Don’t answer that. And stop your damn snickering while you’re at it.

How am I supposed to react to Mom’s passing? With shock? Sadness? No one else seems to be. Not really. And who can blame them? If you see a meteor flaming toward you for the better part of five years — far in the distance at first but barreling ever closer by the day — can you really be shocked and saddened when it finally hits? Can you really act like you were in the dark when the sky has been flooding with light?

When Mom went to bed Tuesday night at the nursing home, she was still battling you, Alzheimer’s, even though you’d been whittling away at her entire existence for the last several years. She’d had a rough day on Sunday — like I’m telling you anything — followed by a rebound of sorts on Monday, followed by an even rougher day on Tuesday. All of it coming after what had seemed like a close call with death at your hands two months ago, the day before her 81st birthday.

As I talked with my wife Adrianne about it all before bed Tuesday night, I offhandedly threw out a little something to God, even though I didn’t want to give you the satisfaction of getting to me — or Mom. Remember? I said my piece aloud, through the waves of my own fatigue and the images of my mom’s:

“You know, God. Maybe it’s time to just call it a day.”

Less than four hours later, my phone rang in the middle of the night. I saw that it was my sister Kathy calling. And as I threw the phone down on the floor in frustration, I knew: You’d won, Alzheimer’s. You’d finally wrapped up the game. Checkmate.

Mom was gone for good.

She’d fallen asleep that night, same as I had, same as Adrianne had, same as she herself had for — if my calculations are right — 29,623 nights before that.

Only this time she didn’t wake up.

Nancy Marilyn Vogt died, officially, at 1:40 a.m. Wednesday, May 4. It all sounds so clear and simple. But it isn’t. Your fault, Alzheimer’s. Your doing. Because you know as well as I do that my mom didn’t die the other day; she just finished melting, evaporating. It was just the period ending a sentence that had long been written, the eighth note to resolve the ominous octave you’ve been tapping out on that piano of yours for years.

When was it exactly that Mom stopped calling me? I can’t put my finger on it. When was it exactly that Mom stopped being able to really understand me? I can’t put my finger on it. When was it exactly that Mom stopped being able to take care of herself fully? I can’t put my finger on it. When was it exactly that Mom stopped being able to truly speak? I can’t put my finger on it.

When was it exactly that Mom snuck out the back door and went for a long walk in the woods, never to return?

I can’t put my finger on any of it. I only know that it all happened long before May 4, 2016.

How do you grieve the “sudden” loss of someone who has already disappeared? How do you cry anyway? How can you?

I gotta hand it to you, Alzheimer’s. You’re good at being bad. Way better than I thought. Very inclusive. Nice of you to think of me. I tip my hat to you.

But I’d rather smack you with it.

Peter Vogt

I’m a writer. An essayist, to be more exact. I tell stories here—true stories, from my own life, in hopes they will make a positive difference in yours.

I share laughs and tears, insights and observations, frustrations and realizations, relying all the while on the storytelling wisdom of Julia Cameron, author of The Right to Write.

It is a great paradox that the more personal, focused, and specific your writing becomes, the more universally it communicates.