Imagine this. You awaken in the morning and have no idea where you are, who are
\nor who any of the people around you are. And that not knowing did not go away as the day progressed. It lasted all day.<\/p>\n
Alzheimer\u2019s Disease does this to its victims.<\/p>\n
The Alzheimer\u2019s Association aptly designates today\u2014June 20 and the Summer Solstice\u2014as the culmination of their month-long observance highlighting the estimated 5.8 million people age 65 and older living with the disease. The association emphasizes their activities on this day by naming it The Longest Day.<\/p>\n
In his last years, my father greeted each new day without knowing anything about it before Alzh![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Scan0017-300x204.jpg\")
eimer\u2019s took him almost 20 years ago. Especially when he had to live in a nursing home, my father awakened in an agitated, sometimes combative state. Alzheimer\u2019s morphed an always mild man not given to anger into a ready-to-fight senior citizen. My sister and I think he became this other person because he didn\u2019t know anything about the day he had entered.<\/p>\n
Seven years in age separated my father and his brother, but they seemed to have a strong, supportive relationship.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/DaddyTom-207x300.jpeg\")
It was my uncle who came to our rescue when New Orleans flooded in 1965. My father was devastated when my uncle went to Viet Nam. Perusing family papers and pictures yields many other examples of their brotherly relationship. Unfortunately, they shared what we are afraid may be the \u201cfamily disease.\u201d Alzheimer\u2019s took my uncle 10 years after my father.<\/p>\n
Now, my cousin, the one closest to me in age, and I kind of check each other out from time to time to see if we recognize Alzheimer\u2019s symptoms in ourselves.<\/p>\n
So far, so good. Watching Alzheimer\u2019s unfold in a loved one is not fun. Alzheimer\u2019s robs a person of his or her personhood. Everything is taken, usually slowly and painstakingly.<\/p>\n
My father and my uncle earned bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees. Both were ministers, with my uncle becoming an army chaplain and serving twice in Viet Nam and my father being a church pastor. Both were married and had children.<\/p>\n
Alzheimer\u2019s stealthily pulled the details of their lives from them. Now we can laugh about my father and the printer he bought for his computer. It stayed in the box, and of course. unconnected to the computer. Forever. Anytime someone mentioned the printer, Daddy would reply that he wanted to read the instruction manual first. That printer never left the box. This from a man who had built a stereo from scratch, and it worked. This from a man who could do just about anything to an airplane.<\/p>\n
My father began airplane flying lessons at age 16 and joined the Army Air Corps during WWII. When I was born, he was in civil service, taking care of airplanes. He later taught others to fly. My mother said he could tell what kind of plane was flying overheard just by listening. But, the last time my sister drove him to the airport just to watch the \u201ctake offs and landings\u201d\u2014one of our family fun things\u2014he didn\u2019t even look up.<\/p>\n
From my father and uncle, Alzheimer\u2019s took:<\/p>\n
Brothers<\/strong> who had delivered sermons to countless people in sometimes trying setting, the ability to speak, read or write;<\/p>\n Brothers<\/strong> who enjoyed playing gold together, the ability to enjoy their hobbies;<\/p>\n Brothers<\/strong> who had families, the names of their wives and children;<\/p>\n Brothers<\/strong> who shared family and a family history, the knowledge of who they were;<\/p>\n Brothers<\/strong> who participated in daily life, the knowledge of where they were as they awoke each\u00a0Fromday;<\/p>\n Brothers<\/strong>\u00a0 who shared their history, their memories, their lives, their very being.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Never forget this. Alzheimer\u2019s is an insidious disease.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thoughts from my book in progress<\/em>, In the Gloaming: My Father, Alzheimer’s and Me<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Imagine this. You awaken in the morning and have no idea where you are, who are or who any of the people around you are. And that not knowing did not go away as the day progressed. It lasted all day. Alzheimer\u2019s Disease does this to its victims. The Alzheimer\u2019s Association aptly designates today\u2014June 20… Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[29,33,65,32,64,63,8,42,44,39,41,43,9,12],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","tag-biography","tag-editors","tag-fathers-day","tag-journalists","tag-summer-solstice","tag-the-longest-day","tag-writing","tag-alzheimers","tag-ancestors","tag-families","tag-father","tag-health","tag-memoir","tag-writers"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jbowrites.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}