Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease for everyone but it seems especially cruel when its victim is someone whose memory was especially sharp.
I Get That My Mom Has Alzheimer’s But I Just Can’t
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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My mother-in-law didn’t recognize the man standing next to her in a photograph.
When told that he was her son she couldn’t believe that she had a son.
Sorry, Ted.
🙁
Thanks to Ted for sharing this even or perhaps because it is so sad and somewhat macabre. It feels like it’s still kind of taboo to talk about problems like dementia – however widespread – and really anything that blends the professional with the personal.
It certainly feels particularly cruel when loss gets to the heart of personal character. This is already true for public figures one does not even now personally; such as Terry Jones (Monty Python) who lost his ability to use language – and he was such a master wordsmith…
You’re welcome. I think one of the great problems with American society is that the principle of rugged individualism implies that we’re all supposed to absorb our agony and pain separately rather than together. It’s kind of insane and it needs to stop.
The metaphor of the pear tree is deliberate?
The tree represents your mother’s mind.
The water represents Lethe, the river of forgetting, or just water in general, which represents the unknown parts of the mind.
The roots are half in the water showing the progression of her illness.