Something happened yesterday that surprised me. It shouldn’t have. Freda lives in the neighbourhood where I work as an advocate at Christie Gardens. She says very little. Days might go by without her speaking, and if she does, she only says “yes” or “no.” She still communicates, though. She has the most incredible smile that

S is for siblings. I have seen so many families over the years. Sometimes it breaks my heart as I see a wife struggling to care for her elderly husband, and watch her pain as he deteriorates. I am moved when I see a couple who has been married for 73 years, sitting on the

Fear and I have been both good friends and bitter enemies all of my life. When I made friends with fear, he helped me make poor decisions that allowed my life to shrink into a tiny box. There were things I didn’t do and places I didn’t go and experiences I didn’t have because of

R is for roles, because yours is changing. And staying the same. At the same time. Chances are, you have a specific role with your loved one. You are the sister, the daughter, the friend, the son, the husband or the wife.You are comfortable in this role, and although you may seldom think about it,

Q is for questions. The same questions asked over and over again. And again. It’s common among people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, to ask the same question (or set of questions) repeatedly. Wise is the care partner who looks for ways to both understand and cope with this. The alternative is a

P is for purpose. “Food and shelter can be withheld, but meaning is something others cannot deny us. Regardless of our life situations, as humans we are always seeking meaning.” 1 Without purpose, life is flat. It’s a series of obligations, where we trudge through each cold, grey day. Nothing matters. Purpose brings colour and

O is for overwhelmed. What does overwhelmed look like for the care partner? It’s the daughter dealing with her mother’s anxiety disorder who can receive twenty calls a day. Fifteen of them are overnight. Nothing she does or says calms her mother down. She hears the same questions and the same worries over and over

Before I got off the subway, I knew it was raining.  As I stepped off the train onto the platform, the scent of a fresh, spring rain wafted by.  I took a deep breath. Ahhhhh. I had glanced out the window several times that day and wondered if the promised storm was coming after all.

N is for normal. What is normal? In 1998, Patsy Clairmont first told us Normal is Just a Setting on Your Dryer. What a relief it was to learn that it’s okay to not fit into society’s little box. It was freeing at the time, yet we still seek “normal” in our lives. Normal changes. When

M is for memory. And memories. Alzheimer’s and dementia is all about memory. Lack of memory, how to stimulate memory, retrieve lost memories and work with the memory that is left. In the context of the disease, memory (and the lack of it) is the enemy. There are huge amounts of fear associated with memory