Moments of Sadness

Although Kate’s good humor has continued through this morning, that doesn’t mean that the usual signs of Alzheimer’s are not present. Some of these signs cause me to feel sad as they are further indicators of her decline. Over the past few days, I have mentioned a couple of times that we are going to have lunch with our good and long-time friends, the Davises who live in Nashville. Each time I have mentioned it, Kate has quickly said, “What am I going to talk about?” The first time this occurred I told her she could talk about her children and grandchildren and our recent trip to Chautauqua. Even as I said it, I knew that she could not remember enough about Chautauqua to be able to say much. She told me she would need my help. This happened last night at dinner. She said that before the visit she wanted me to go through the things we had done at Chautauqua. She also mentioned wanting me to carry the load on the discussion. I assured her that I would. The subject came up again this morning, and it appears that she is quite concerned about not being able to participate in the conversation. I do know that her memory is so poor that this is something she won’t worry about except when I mention the visit. I don’t intend to bring it up again until time to go on Friday

This morning another moment of sadness occurred as she was preparing to go outside. She couldn’t find her clippers; so I gave her a new pair that I had bought and put away for just such an occurrence. I noticed that the lock on this pair is different from the others and said, “Let me show you how to unlock them.” She felt insulted, took the clippers, and headed for the door. I went to the back of the house to put away a couple of things she had left in our bedroom last night. In a moment, I heard her call to me. I knew what she wanted. When I reached her, she was heading my way and held out the clippers for me. I unlocked them and showed her how it was done. I suspect that she hadn’t remembered that she hadn’t let me show her a few minutes earlier; however, I felt sad for her that she had been so confident that she could do it herself and then had to come back to me right away to help.