Wednesday, August 28, 2019

My Alzheimer's Journal #4

Yesterday was a very depressing day for me. I came to the realization that I was making too many mistakes due to my memory loss in interacting with the brides and grooms whose weddings I would be officiating. So I contacted Father Ken to let him know that after November of this year, I would no longer be able to work with the God Squad Wedding Ministers. I've been with them for almost 20 years and it brought me so much joy and satisfaction. But I didn't want to embarrass them or my brides and grooms by doing something stupid or forgetting something important.

Then last night I saw a funny meme on facebook that involved a humorous pun. So I copied it and when to send it to my oldest grandson who is an expert punster, only to realize that I could not remember his name. That devastated me. I had to look on his mother's page to find his name. He comes to our house all the time. He used to cut our grass before we moved into an HOA community.
But I couldn't remember my own grandson's name. The experience made me remember when my father put pictures of my brothers and I and our spouses and kids on the wall with labels explaining who we were to help my mother remember before we came to visit. I guess I'm about at that point now in this horrible disease.

I remember after my dad died of a stroke thinking that I wanted to go out like him. Go quickly. I hoped not to die like my mom who was so frightened and disoriented in the last year of her life. She got to the point where she not only did not know any of us, she didn't even know her own name. And now, knowing that is my own fate, well... it's very depressing. I remember how much caring for her took out of my dad, even though they were living in an assisted living community. Connie is not in the best of health and I worry about being a burden to her when I lose more of my cognitive ability.

That's all for today.

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