In Memory

Think for a moment of three things you have achieved in your life. They could be a reward you received, the fact that you survived college, your children, a published article or playing the piano. Write each of these things on a separate slip of paper.

Now, take this first one, crumple it up and toss it in the trash. You no longer remember how to do this.

Take the second slip of paper, crumple it up and toss it in the trash. You no longer remember ever having done this.

Last, take the third slip of paper, crumple it up and toss it in the trash. You remember enjoying this, but because of physical frailties you can no longer participate in this activity.

This is what it is like to have Alzheimer's or dementia. For some of us, it would be like loosing your entire life.

A friend told me this week I think too much about getting old. Maybe I do, but I'm around old 40 hours a week. Death is a weekly part of my life. I hear stories about 80-year-olds acting like 2-year-olds, skin tears, morphine, strokes and the like every day. It just becomes a part of the way you think. Yesterday one of the nurses gave an in-service on the diseases of Alzheimer's and dementia. For the first time I realized what sad diseases they are.

Women with Alzheimer's who have husbands that care for them can live in a world of fear. Why? Because if they can still remember being married, they remember their husband as young and handsome - not old and gray. And they're scared of the old man in the house and wonder when he will leave.

On the other hand, men with Alzheimer's who have wives caring for them tend to be more content, even though they wonder where the beautiful woman they married has gone to. They think the little, old, gray haired lady in the kitchen is their grandmother. And who doesn't feel safe with their grandmother?

The children of people with Alzheimer's are forgotten. If their parents remember they have children at all, they remember small kids and not grown adults. They don't recognize their grown children, leaving these children feeling unloved and even rejected.

By the time hospice nurses see Alzheimer's and dementia patients, they're in the final stages of the disease. Grown adults act like toddlers. They say "no" to everything. They carry dolls. They undress themselves simply because they are able to. They revert back to their original languages. We even have one patient whose parents came to America from Italy either before he was born or he was very small. He never spoke Italian fluently, but now in his disease he speaks whole sentences in a language he never actually spoke - only remembers somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind hearing his parents speak.

As I thought about this, I thought of my dad. When I was only 2 or 3 years of age, he taught me Scripture. He helped me memorize Psalm 23, and Psalm 100, and other passages. He read to me Bible stories over and over again until I could tell them back to him. Unknowingly, he gave me something I will always have. And, hopefully, if I lose the ability to remember the things I loved when I'm old and gray headed, I will still remember the Word my dad taught me when I was 2 years old.

Yet another reason I hope and pray if God ever gives me children, I will endure in teaching them Scripture. And even though I don't sing very well, I'm also going to teach them hymns. Because you know something a dementia patient never loses? The ability to sing. I've heard about it in many of our patients - the old hymns they sing while they can hardly put a whole sentence together. They praise God to the end. And if I can do that, I guess losing my achievements in life isn't so bad after all.