Dear Alzheimer's Disease

Dear Alzheimer's Disease,

I have to say, just getting the idea to sit down and write this letter to you has me a little weepy. What am I really supposed to do about you other than just cry sometimes?

I want to sit here and be bitter and say things like, "I hate Alzheimer's Disease." I don't use the word hate very often, I don't really think we have much room for that word in our lives, yet- I want to hate you. I do. But the thing is- even as mad or as frustrated I get with you, I can't even muster it up to hate you because mostly I just think you are sad. Alzheimer's Disease evokes not much more than pity and sadness and sometimes despair, so much so that I can't even hate - only pity.

I do have to admit, when I think about the havoc you have wreaked on our lives, mine and my family's - my husband's especially- and most of all hers, our lovely Saribenne's, I get pretty tense. Why did you have to do it? Why did you have to pick on her brain? Saribenne was a vibrant, strong and fiercely independent woman and you drove her from her own home into ours, you took her away from the things and people she loved and just left her with no where to go but our house!

But then- I guess I have you to thank for that in a way. I can't really imagine how our lives would have played out in the last few years without Saribenne here, without her joyful way of seeing beauty in all things, without her constant encouragement to be who we are, and even her need for our endless patience. So thank you for that, I guess, as begrudgingly as I offer it to you.

But then- was that not enough? You had to keep chewing away at her mind and pushing along until she wasn't even able to stay here any more. You had to get her to the place where even we were not enough for her. We had to find a new place for her to live, in the care of strangers, though fortunately, thank God, fortunately, kind hearted strangers who make a good and safe home for her.

But we miss her, and we know she is sad and sort of lost in her world, sometimes knowing who were are and sometimes just knowing she SHOULD know who we are. That, and it's hard to fit it all in, all the visits and the thinking for her and the remembering for her and all of it. Damn it Alzheimer's! You do piss me off.

And now, she is sick again- and in the hospital- and you, you damn disease- make what would be a rough situation for anyone nearly unbearable for her, or for us who just have to sit and watch and listen and do our best to help a beautiful scared woman who doesn't know where she is or why she hurts or why someone has come along and strapped her to a bed and stuck tubes in her body. That really does make me mad and pushes me closer to that hate word than anything ever really has. That's the way it is and you did this!

So, I write this letter. I throw it to the world and just really cry out that all I really want to do is understand this disease, and make peace with why this happens to people. I don't want to hate you, or anybody or anything else, but I do want understanding and I just can't seem to get it.

I write this letter, which will do no real good, but I try. I look at the moon and the changing leaves and the beauty and health that surrounds me and my own and I try to just be thankful, and I hope that someday, somehow, you and I can learn to be at peace with one another.

Sincerely,

until we meet again tomorrow,

me.