I make a donation every month to the Alzeimer's Society. It's the
first time I've ever donated without someone jumping out at me from
behind a bush and speaking for so long about homeless dogs from impoverished nations with
incurable diseases for so long that I handed
over all my bank details. I actively sought out their donation form, and
really this is an attempt for me to explain part of the reason why.
I am also running a 10k in support of their fight against dementia. I know 10k might seem like something you could do tomorrow, but it's something I have had to work very hard to hope to achieve. And actually I think it's pretty beautiful that we've developed the convention of motivating one another towards fitness and challenges by donating to organisations that make the world a better place. Well done humanity. Here is a win.
Here is my justgiving page, but please do read on also.
Both my grandmother, Doris, and my great aunt, also Doris, battled dementia in the later stages of their lives.
It's difficult to explain in what way this is an emotive issue for me, but I don't want to pretend I was close to my grandmother. It always seemed inevitable that I couldn't be close to her, precisely because of her dementia. He eulogy (in 2003) was a surprise to me, as my uncle remembered a family-oriented, smart, busy woman – and as much as those sorts of occasions don't elicit criticism or judgement, I felt that it was a shame that I didn't know in any depth, the character of this woman who people tell me I remind them of. Who makes up, in part, who I am.
What I did experience, second-hand, was the struggle for my parent's generation. My aunt once explained that she was on the phone to Doris, her mother, when Doris suddenly remarked 'anyway, I must go and check I have put my children to bed'. Stories like this become anecdotal – they encapsulate the confusion; the absurdity; the sometimes momentary and sometimes extended alienation from the world people with dementia face; and I'm sure every family who knows this disease has a similar story. I'm sure those people have far too many similar stories.
How much of what you are is shaped by your relationships? The person you were before you became a parent, the person you were before your parents split, the person you were before a painful break-up or divorce, even just the person you were a few days ago before you met a new friend... that's not the same person as you are today. In some way you are changed by those relationships and those relationships become important to you. My grandparents, on the other side of my family, have as much as said to me that the best thing about their lives, now they are not as mobile as they'd like, is seeing their children, seeing me and my brother, learning about our lives and sharing in our joys and achievments (and blog posts).
I can't imagine the impact, for both my aunt, and for my grandmother, that dementia had on their relationship, but exploring that anecdote in any real detail is like falling down the rabbit hole to not-so-Wonderland, it's the window to a world of dementia.
Just think, you speak to the woman who you spend your whole life knowing as your mother – who has guaranteed to have been there when you were born. Who has shaped her days, months and years around your life, your desires, your future – and you can't guarantee that she'll know who you are. Sometimes I can't buy a dress without wanting to check my Mum thinks it's nice. Sometimes I bake a cake and I just want to tell my Mum what it looked like. I can't guarantee she'll have any interest in what I have to say, but I do know that when she answers the phone she'll know who I am, and that by the end of the conversation she'll still be aware.
To be frank, it seems like a long-winded teaser-trailer for death. That person you love is sort-of there. Sometimes you'll show up and they'll be there, and sometimes they won't really be there. It's magic. It will look and smell and feel like them, but the trick is it won't really be them. Not always. Not anymore.
On the day my grandmother died her children noted they didn't feel some extreme pang of grief because it felt like they had slowly lost their mother over the past ten years, piece-by-piece.
But for her, for the grandmother I never really knew, well, this deterioration happened across the bredth of her life, to all her relationships. Every person was removed, forgotten, confused. One-by-one or all together. And really, she was alone. Not for the lack of a family, not for the lack of good-parenting, of working on those relationships over time, but because of this disease. In a conversation with someone she'd loved and nurtured there was no guarantee of those feelings, that history, that person, being remembered...
I think it's important to fight this illness, to conduct research into cures and medications. But predominantly I think it's important to look after and care for the people for whom dementia is inevitable, for whom it causes day-to-day confusion and isolation. And to help their families cope with these issues too.
Here is my justgiving page.
I am also running a 10k in support of their fight against dementia. I know 10k might seem like something you could do tomorrow, but it's something I have had to work very hard to hope to achieve. And actually I think it's pretty beautiful that we've developed the convention of motivating one another towards fitness and challenges by donating to organisations that make the world a better place. Well done humanity. Here is a win.
Here is my justgiving page, but please do read on also.
Inarticulately, some thoughts on why I support Alzheimer's Society
Both my grandmother, Doris, and my great aunt, also Doris, battled dementia in the later stages of their lives.
It's difficult to explain in what way this is an emotive issue for me, but I don't want to pretend I was close to my grandmother. It always seemed inevitable that I couldn't be close to her, precisely because of her dementia. He eulogy (in 2003) was a surprise to me, as my uncle remembered a family-oriented, smart, busy woman – and as much as those sorts of occasions don't elicit criticism or judgement, I felt that it was a shame that I didn't know in any depth, the character of this woman who people tell me I remind them of. Who makes up, in part, who I am.
What I did experience, second-hand, was the struggle for my parent's generation. My aunt once explained that she was on the phone to Doris, her mother, when Doris suddenly remarked 'anyway, I must go and check I have put my children to bed'. Stories like this become anecdotal – they encapsulate the confusion; the absurdity; the sometimes momentary and sometimes extended alienation from the world people with dementia face; and I'm sure every family who knows this disease has a similar story. I'm sure those people have far too many similar stories.
How much of what you are is shaped by your relationships? The person you were before you became a parent, the person you were before your parents split, the person you were before a painful break-up or divorce, even just the person you were a few days ago before you met a new friend... that's not the same person as you are today. In some way you are changed by those relationships and those relationships become important to you. My grandparents, on the other side of my family, have as much as said to me that the best thing about their lives, now they are not as mobile as they'd like, is seeing their children, seeing me and my brother, learning about our lives and sharing in our joys and achievments (and blog posts).
I can't imagine the impact, for both my aunt, and for my grandmother, that dementia had on their relationship, but exploring that anecdote in any real detail is like falling down the rabbit hole to not-so-Wonderland, it's the window to a world of dementia.
Just think, you speak to the woman who you spend your whole life knowing as your mother – who has guaranteed to have been there when you were born. Who has shaped her days, months and years around your life, your desires, your future – and you can't guarantee that she'll know who you are. Sometimes I can't buy a dress without wanting to check my Mum thinks it's nice. Sometimes I bake a cake and I just want to tell my Mum what it looked like. I can't guarantee she'll have any interest in what I have to say, but I do know that when she answers the phone she'll know who I am, and that by the end of the conversation she'll still be aware.
To be frank, it seems like a long-winded teaser-trailer for death. That person you love is sort-of there. Sometimes you'll show up and they'll be there, and sometimes they won't really be there. It's magic. It will look and smell and feel like them, but the trick is it won't really be them. Not always. Not anymore.
On the day my grandmother died her children noted they didn't feel some extreme pang of grief because it felt like they had slowly lost their mother over the past ten years, piece-by-piece.
But for her, for the grandmother I never really knew, well, this deterioration happened across the bredth of her life, to all her relationships. Every person was removed, forgotten, confused. One-by-one or all together. And really, she was alone. Not for the lack of a family, not for the lack of good-parenting, of working on those relationships over time, but because of this disease. In a conversation with someone she'd loved and nurtured there was no guarantee of those feelings, that history, that person, being remembered...
I think it's important to fight this illness, to conduct research into cures and medications. But predominantly I think it's important to look after and care for the people for whom dementia is inevitable, for whom it causes day-to-day confusion and isolation. And to help their families cope with these issues too.
Here is my justgiving page.
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