The Island of Dr. Alzheimer

            Welcome to our little island. It belongs to an archipelago that spreads across the world. The islands are families caring for aging parents or grandparents with Alzheimer’s Disease at home.  No two islands are exactly alike, yet they are all the same: Isolated, full of love, with long silences and cries in the night. Often there is unfathomable remoteness, even between inhabitants sitting beside one another. There is desire and yearning, for the past and  for the present moment, and a wish to make contact, not so much with the outside world, but with the inner experience of the other.

            There are 4 of us living here, my husband and I, his mother and my father, we- two middle-aged adults well and whole, they-two elderly people, frail, dependent and a little broken. We are abundantly blessed in having what we need and more, yet we feel our daily burdens to be heavy and sometimes sorrowful. There is not a lot of suffering here, compared to the rest of the wide world. There is laughter and story-telling, memories to find and share, moments of music and occasions of gathering friends and family together.  Still from time to time, we complain and vex each other.

            My desire is to chronicle our days, to describe our landscape to those who might visit or live on their own island someday, and to find out how other islanders make the most of the balmy days and weather the storms on the vast Sea of Dementia.

            I hope these blog posts and comments will be like notes sent out in bottles to whoever might be looking for word from other islands. I hope we can exchange thoughts on trials and triumphs, especially the small ones, because as anyone involved with Alzheimer’s disease knows, there is no real recovery.  I hope we can share sources and resources, learn to distinguish a supply boat from a rescue  ship as they come over the horizon, and know when the time is right to send back the one and board the other.