My Mother Needed Us to Love Her until the End of Alzheimer’s Disease

My mother needed us to love her until the end of Alzheimer’s disease.

My grandmother took this photo of my mother, my husband, and me over a decade ago.

It was Thanksgiving Day, six months after my mother’s initial diagnosis with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. And it was seven years before the end of Alzheimer’s disease for my mother.

My mother needed us to love her until the end of Alzheimer’s disease.

At the time, our family struggled to understand what was happening inside my mom’s brain.

(We had no family history of Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia.)

My mother was losing so much weight.

She was losing her independence.

And she was losing her words.

My mother was losing herself.

She was losing her ability to drive.

And she was losing her ability to make decisions.

My mother was losing her memories.

We wanted to fix her.

Naturally, we wanted to know why this happened to her.

We wanted to fix her.

We wanted the woman who always took care of us to come back.

But my mother didn’t need us to fix her.

She needed us to love her until the end.

She needed us to accept her.

And she needed us to be present.

My mother needed us to hold her hand.

She needed us to sit next to her.

And she needed us to let her rest.

My mother needed us to feed her ice cream.

She needed us to play her music and sing her songs.

And she needed us to read to her and tell her stories.

She needed us to love her until the end of Alzheimer’s disease.

My mother needed us to love her until the end.

A version of this post was originally published February 14, 2022.