Friends

I would like to acknowledge, once again, how great Alma's friends have been. It occurred to me, when one of her long time friends came over today, how hard it must be for them to see Alma struggling so much. I mention this because as her friend was leaving, Alma and I walked her out and Alma wanted to keep going. It was pretty easy to get her to come back but she made it known that she did not want to. I thought I could get her to come in by asking her to help me find my shoes and she said, "Or, I could just step on them", looking at my bare feet. I could tell her friend was bothered by the whole thing and that's when it occurred to me how frightening it must be to watch someone who you’ve known since you were a young parent going through something like that. It has always been my practice to walk someone to the door and many times outside when they get up to leave. I also always think it’s a nice way for Alma to say goodbye to her friends. I’m thinking that we are going to have to change that and ask people to quietly slide out so we don’t confuse Alma.

It’s a challenge because Alma wants to spend time with her friends. It’s one of those few pleasures that I was talking about yesterday. She is always happy when they are visiting. However, she often becomes weepy afterwards and I understand why. They get to leave and she is stuck somewhere she doesn’t want to be. I do have one more thing to share regarding all of this. After her friend was gone and Alma had a good cry about wanting to be anywhere but here, she looked at me and very clearly stated, “Please don’t take it personally. You have been very good to me and are a nice lady but I just want to be with my family.”  Believe it or not and as silly as it sounds, I was grateful for the validation that she didn’t think I was torturing her (there are many times when I’m sure she feels that way). More importantly, I want to note that Alma was able to look outside of herself long enough to be mindful of hurting my feelings. It is rare that someone in this stage of Alzheimer’s is able to do that and even though I know those moments are fleeting, I find hope there.