How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Adventures In Alzheimer’s Land

“Growing old is a giant exercise in getting smaller. Not just your body, but your very life and ability to participate in it, shrink in lock-step with the size of the print on your numerous prescription bottles.”

This year when we stopped to visit my mom and dad in Reno en route to our annual Lake Tahoe beach vacation, it became immediately clear that my aging parents are entering a new phase of life, and therefore, so am I. My father’s war with Alzheimer’s is nearing its final few battles. And my mother’s diminishing ability to manage it along with her own failing health, means that for me, their only living adult relation, the beach will have to wait.

There’s such a selfish, shameful component to everything I feel — about spending my vacation with doctors, attorneys, bankers, contractors, cell phone companies — instead of reading a book in the shade of a giant evergreen on the shores of my childhood memories. And about all the hundreds of heart-breaking and time-stealing things that I will have to do over the next months and years — at the expense of my other family, my job, my health, my sense of well-being.

I don’t like my children seeing their grandfather like this. I don’t like the way they look at me or the questions they inevitably ask: Is this going to happen to you, mom? To us? They’ve heard me speak sternly, even harshly to both my parents as I try to temporarily take over everything they used to do for themselves and recreate a smaller form of it, something they might still be able to handle. Because I don’t want to be totally in charge of their lives yet. I still have quite a bit of my own that needs careful tending.

So is there a harsher, more punishing word for guilt? Even that would not begin to express what I feel as I drive away at the end of the week, after patching up my parents as best I can for now, leaving my father clutching his dog, muttering in his recliner, and my mom sobbing as she waves herself back into what is left of her existence.

It’s not that I didn’t see this coming. But I am still dreadfully, woefully and resentfully blind-sided.

No One is Born a MotherBragger

Casino King of Clubs, Sparks, NV

I grew up an only child of two only children. Think about that. No sisters or brothers, obviously. Also, no uncles, aunts, or cousins. I was the clear choice for center of attention from my parents and two sets of grandparents. What a unique opportunity to have my every accomplishment and nuance noted, exaggerated and exploited by this truncated family. There was no other child in sight.

Yet, somehow my combined lineage created an existence in which my comings and goings were not the primary topic of conversation. I can safely say no one ever had to feign interest in stories of my piano lessons, early reading abilities, or selection to twirl my baton in the downtown Sparks, Nevada, Jack’s Carnival and Parade. I’m not sure my mother even came to watch.

She has since explained and justified her family’s eschewing of a brag in any form as a characteristic of the Welsh, of all excuses — she being a descendant of drunk, pessimistic miners from Treorchy, of Boys Choir fame. On my father’s side, it must have been because my particular type of Jewish grandmother preferred to talk only about herself.  

I came to believe that discussing one’s children in a manner that extolled their virtues was simply not necessary, and in my case, might even be a form of Jewish-Baptist sin. So when I became part of Motherverse, I was ill-prepared. And rather than try to create real or imagined bragging rights for my children, I choose to mostly just listen to the other mothers carry on. This made me an incredibly popular target for Motherbraggers — and incredibly qualified to expose this unattractive behavior.

But enough about me.

From here forward, it’s about you, MotherBraggers across the nation, shamelessly filling every conversation with your tall tales, specially crafted to make yourself feel superior via your children. While us realistic mothers-of-the-exceedingly-average, try to avoid you at the grocery store. And wonder how you got this way. And why there are so many of you.

You know who you are, MotherBraggers. But if you’re not sure, keep reading.