August 29
Fifteen years ago, my beautiful, brilliant mother lost her battle to Alzheimer's
It does NOT get easier, in fact, in some ways the passing of the years and the reaching of milestones makes it worse.
In the time she has been gone:
I got a divorce. I won't go into details, but I am proud of the way I did what I did. I am a better person because I am not married to that person.
I met and married the love of my life. It grieves me that my mom never met Chris. She would have been nuts about him and she would have been thick as thieves with him mom , Anna.
Her granddaughter Kate graduated from college, got married and has one son with another son on the way. She started her own business and is doing ok.
Our family has a hole in it, and has since she crossed over. Not a day goes by that I don't think about my Mom, wish I could call her to share some tiny bit of news, or visit her and cook in her kitchen. I miss her most at Christmas- her favorite holiday. I bake more cookies than we can eat, remembering how she would bake and give the cookies to the neighbors as a holiday treat. I can't bear to make lebkuchen.
Alzheimer's stole her from us, bit by bit. The year she died, my sister and I did a walk in her honor and raised over $1,500 in her name. It is my hope that one day, families will not go what we went through and that this will be curable.
She once told me she was glad she could not remember the exact date that her mother died (Ironically it was August 11, which is Kate's birthday) My grandmother died of the "family cancer" during the Watts Riots. Unfortunately I remember the day my mother passed on. The number 29 resonated with my family:
My Dad was 29 when he met my mother
My mother was 29 when my sister was born
I was 29 when Kate was born
They lived in 29 Palms
My mother died on August 29
My Dad died on March 29.
I wonder if that means anything or it's just an odd coincidence.
Still I miss you Mom. There should not be tears left, but there are.
If you still have your mom here, hug her tight for me today.
