Mom: the oblivion and her best memories

Baby Can I Hold You_Tracy Chapman

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A cruel disease, a long road of pain and memories versus oblivion.

When my father passed away, my mother slowly began her long journey with Alzheimer's disease and with her at her side my brother Horacio and I.

From that moment on, her mother began to have some very ugly dreams, so ugly that she told me that she didn't even want to tell them because the truth was there were things that she "would prefer to forget." She told me that some mortifying memories from her childhood (literally many deaths in her childhood) and the lack of my dad, which she still found untrue, were things she "preferred to forget." I don't forget anymore, she wanted to forget and that's how her cruel Alzheimer's began.

..she told me ... were things she "preferred to forget."...

The Alzheimer is a disease that can last for many years and my mother, always so strong and healthy, resisted a lot. Each year the symptoms progressed, she went from denial to no longer fully realizing what was happening to her and although she still maintained a certain autonomy, it terrified her to see that she was forgetting some things and that she could forget even more.

...it terrified her to see ... that she could forget even more...

The day came when we could no longer take care of her at home between the two of us, not even with the help of someone else. Our work and personal lives revolved around what our mother needed and we suffered more as she lost more consciousness. About 8 years went by and we had to face one of her most difficult moments: taking her to a residential home. It cost us horrors, we felt guilty, we tried to avoid it but it was time.

...one of her most difficult moments: taking her to a residential home...we felt guilty...

As if that were not enough, by then we had just realized that whom we believed to be our trusted person to help her at home had manipulated her, scared her, and scammed her in big. We couldn't believe it. We had always known about stories like this and we thought that because we were informed it wouldn't happen to us, however it still happened to us. So after the challenging and painful moment of taking mom to a residential home, (which immediately turned out to be the best), this story of betrayal, horror and scam came upon us.

...whom we believed to be our trusted person to help her at home had manipulated her, scared her, and scammed her in big...

Unfortunately this type of situation is very common in families that have a person with Alzheimer. Precisely whoever defrauds the patient and the family environment, totally abuses the person's confusion and lack of memory while accessing all of his things. They do everything possible to keep them away from their family and instill a lot of fear in them by telling them that their relatives are bad and that they are going to leave them with nothing, they scare them more and more and thus isolate them to manipulate them more, they even dope them and keep everything for themselves all they can. Alzheimer's patients are an easy target, victims of multiple scams.

For us as a family it was a moment of true terror. In a second we realized that someone had completely invaded our lives, almost stripped us of everything. I imagined the moments of abuse in which they tortured mom and the fear she would have felt in addition to the fact that she already felt lost. She was helpless. It broke my heart to think that they had done that to her and I had to take care of her, protect her and defend her more than ever.

...it was a moment of true terror...someone had completely invaded our lives... the fear she would have felt...

We immediately had to, out of nowhere, get lawyers because the scam was such that it could have left us all on the street. So we ran between the residence, the doctor, the medications, her diapers, etc., to the law firm. Everything was urgent and we tried to act in time to stop the damage and bring the truth to light. The pain multiplied, the efforts to respond on various fronts also multiplied. My personal and work life had already changed to meet the needs of the moment, but I was also living a nightmare.

...The pain multiplied... My personal and work life had already changed...

We were afraid to think what else they could do to us. In any case, we had to move forward and look for evidence or elements that would serve to show the case in a trial. Meantime mom quickly fell into another deeper level of her illness and it made us even sadder.

That year was so difficult that to top it all off we discovered that the lawyers had been very negligent and dishonest. Without saying anything they had abandoned the case, without even presenting the evidence to the prosecution, with which the case had been closed while they told us that everything was taking its course, that we had to wait. They charged a fortune and did nothing but lie to us. That was another scam.

...to top it all off ... the lawyers had been very negligent and dishonest...

One afternoon we managed to have an appointment with the prosecutor of the case who explained to us what had happened and made it very clear that the case had been closed due to lack of evidence (the lawyers had not brought the material that we had given them). I told the prosecutor that I understood everything but that there was no way I was going to leave my mother without defending her honor and without bringing the truth to light, so completely determined, I asked her what we could do to have the case reopened. The prosecutor asked us to add one more piece of evidence, a very specific one that would be conclusive to resume the trial.

...there was no way I was going to leave my mother without defending her,..

I clearly remember the talk we had with my brother when we left the hearing. We were in the car talking about how we had already been through so much with mom, with the scam, with the bad lawyers (imagine that I summarize everything here but it was much more) that for a few minutes my brother felt dejected and we still had a lot ahead of us to continue taking care of mom. At that moment Horacio told me that he had finally understood the phrase that says that "forgiving is divine" saying that he preferred to forgive, to feel the relief of letting that battle go.

... "forgiving is divine"...

It is true, at that moment it would have been divine to lower our arms in the trial, forgive the scam and have one less issue. In any case. However, winning the trial would protect us for the future in case more crimes occurred during the scam and what motivated me most was defending my mother. It wasn't about money, it was about the truth, about standing up for my mother. So in a second I convinced my brother to try it and we went from calm reflection to immediate action. It was that conviction, that new impulse that generated in me the pain of injustice, that came from so deep inside that moved us and that same afternoon we got the missing proof!

...It wasn't about money, it was about the truth, about standing up for my mother...

Another year passed and we won the trial. The money was not recovered but we achieved what mattered most to me, which was not to let them pass us by any more, to show the truth and defend mom.

...we won the trial...

Mom's illness continued to advance little by little until the pandemic arrived and isolation made her much worse. For my part, not being able to see her wake me up at night worrying me about how she was doing and if they were taking good care of her. When we saw her again, Mom, she could no longer stand alone and she practically no longer spoke. Each time she went a little further lost in her mind. There were only a few days left when she had some reactions that we were trying to interpret. More pain.

...the pandemic and isolation made her much worse...

We began to see and witness several things that were not right in the nursing home so we had to do a new search to find a new residential home, but not before speaking with doctors to evaluate a change in her situation but it was more than clear to us that we had to take her to another place. Once again a great decision to make that was worthy. The new house was like night and day compared to the previous one and in a matter of hours mom even looked brighter and livelier.

By then the moment we feared so much arrived, at least I knew it was going to come and how hard it would be: mom no longer recognized us, she forgot us. In reality, who knows if she forgot us? It's that they enter so much into her new world that they disconnect from it.

...the moment we feared so much arrived... mom no longer recognized us...

At that stage, the typical conversation with my brother was how the visit to Mom had gone, whether she would have recognized him, whether she would have recognized me (we had to visit her separately as a result of the pandemic). We told each other the details of how she had reacted after something we had said to her or a caress we had given her. We looked to see if she had made any kind of gesture on her face, a movement with her hands, a sound, what out. We asked ourselves: "Does she realize that it's us? I think so, I think not, I don't know... in some way she must know or perceive it" we answered. Going to see her was very sad. More and more difficult. More and more pain. The mourning in life had already begun a long time ago.

...The mourning in life had already begun a long time ago...

The truth is I don't think she forgot anything about us, she was just in his trance, the end was inevitable. I think mom has us so present that every once in a while she appears in my dreams. I don't dream about her, that's not it. She appears in my dreams and she doesn't even have to speak, she looks at me, she shows me her body posture and with that she tells me everything. She appears at just the right moments.

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The best I could do.

Since mom was no longer in her house and she started to live in a residential home every week I went to pick her up, take her for a ride, walk with her small and fearful steps and take her to a nice cafe. So every weekend we visited a different place and a new cafe.

I tried to share with her the most beautiful moments possible within what we had to live. She turned radiant everytime I went to pick her up and she returned home much more cheerful and tell everyone that I was her little girl and she laugh because she knew that I was an adult. She immediately remembered dad and her love story and how he surprised her with his declaration and also said that she had been a teacher by vocation.

Her stories were increasingly fragmented, intertwined and inaccurate but it didn't matter. It mattered that she was left with the best memories and so did I because on each walk, in addition to the beautiful moment, I took photos of her and us together and at the end of each year I made a video. I had decided that no matter what happened I was going to create the best memories.

...she was left with the best memories and so did I...

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I don't want to forget, I simply want to choose the best memories.

I prefer the prettiest colors.