A special someone
By Audrey Lawrence
My husband is in care at West End Villa because of his Alzheimer’s. One evening he was unusually talkative and lucid, so we were chatting about his old friends. I would ask, “Do you remember Larry?” and he would say that he did. We then went on to talk about other people a bit.
Suddenly he said, “I’m confused. How do you know my friends?” I replied that I knew them because I was his wife. He told me that I was not his wife. So I said, “It’s because you’re special that I have to know about you.”
And he replied, with a big smile, “That’s pretty easy to take; I like that.”
Time to remember
By Cindy Irwin
Great Aunt Sylvia was only 65 years old when she was diagnosed with an early stage of Alzheimer’s disease. Aunt Sylvia was devastated by the news, and was determined to make sure that she recorded all of her most significant memories in a journal before her memory started to weaken.
Her memory is now almost entirely faded. Living through this difficult time has been hard for us, but having Aunt Sylvia’s journal has helped us all cope with this unfortunate disease. Aunt Sylvia loves that she can read stories from her past from her perspective, and not from another person’s point of view. Whenever Aunt Sylvia becomes deeply upset, my family know that we have her stories to relax her and lift her spirits.
Do you have a heart-warming caregiving story? Tell us about it! Your story should be 200 to 250 words long and we’d love to see a picture of you and your loved one. Either send us an email or become a fan on Facebook and share it there.
If you send us your tale, your name will be entered into a draw for a $25.00 gift card from Tim Horton’s!
Tags: dementia, family, happiness for the soul, memories, relationships
Thanks for that! I’m a new caregiver, 7 weeks, and I’ve hit a wall she won’t go arywhene and I can’t leave. I needed that permission to get some help! So glad I found you .