My mother forgot my seventeenth birthday. My junior prom had been the evening before, and I slept over at a friend’s house. When I walked through the front door with my overnight bag that Sunday morning, I fully expected a “Happy Birthday” greeting from my family, yet I received none. Exhausted from the late-night shenanigans…
I never wanted to be the grief girl but I lost my mom to Alzheimer’s. I’ve been a writer since I was 9 years old. In fourth grace language arts class, I soaked up sentence diagramming and essay structure like it was manna from heaven. Words and language became my currency, and crafting fictional short…
I love writing letters to my mom but it took me months to write a “Letter to Me” for my dear friend Kelly Smith at Mrs Disciple. Kelly and I met through Jen Hatmaker’s For the Love launch team this summer and have maintained an online relationship over the last few months, sharing encouragement and…
Need gift ideas for someone with Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia? Christmas shopping was bittersweet while my mother was living with Alzheimer’s. She loved Christmas and the tradition of Santa Claus, and I looked forward to exchanging gifts with her every year. Yet, the further she progressed into dementia, the more difficult it became…
A counselor once told me that my mother would be more “accessible” to me after she died than when she was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease. I didn’t fully understand what she meant at the time. She thought I was going to be able to communicate with my dead mother? Yet, shortly after my mom died,…
