My older mom is losing her memory. I'm rushing to plan my wedding while she still remembers my partner.
My grandparents took me in when I was a baby and raised me. To me, they're mom and dad.
In my mid-20s, my mom started losing her memory, which made me feel isolated.
My fiancé and I are planning our wedding as fast as we so she can be part of it.
When I was growing up in a Jewish school, the rabbi's son asked me, "What's it like to live with your grandparents?" It was an innocent question but not a surprising one.
My grandparents took me in when I was a baby, and I don't remember life before them. To me, they're just mom and dad.
Coming home to grandma and grandpa instead of mom and dad felt like the biggest difference to me as a child when I compared my life to the traditional families I saw around me. And for decades, that remained the biggest difference, aside from me coming out in my early 20s.
My mom began losing her memory
Then, in my mid-20s, something else started to differentiate me from my peers. My mom had begun to lose her memory.
There are many feelings associated with watching a loved one lose their memory, often embarrassment or shame. I didn't feel either of those. Anger and sadness bubbled to the surface instead.
I was angry I had to experience this at my age and sad that my mother would likely never meet my children — a woman who, in her late 40s, decided to become a mother again for a fourth time to me, her first grandchild.
Not a single person in my personal or professional network seemed to be able to relate to what I was going through.
I can't count how many nights I cried myself to sleep or how many times I broke down publicly — at events, at parties, at work. I felt like a pot of water constantly boiling over. For years, I suffered in silence, afraid to broach the topic with my family and unable to open up to anyone else.
Then, I started talking about it.
I asked my dad questions
The people who didn't want to talk about it were the people impacted the most. My dad barely has a memory of life without my mom. My aunt fears that one day she'll experience the same symptoms. And I never thought this would happen to me, even after watching my mom go through the same thing with her mother.
I started asking my dad questions, letting him know I was there for him however he needed me.
To me, he became the superhero I always knew he was.
My parents have been married for 61 years. They met when they were 17 and 20 and are now in their 80s. My father, a child of immigrants and Holocaust survivors and a former small-business owner, has supported two generations of children.
He worked incredibly hard and built a successful business. Everyone in our town knew him. He and my mom attended every art class, soccer practice, and Taekwondo lesson. He cooked and planted vegetables. He did so much to create the most beautiful, perfect life for us all. He still does.
My dad keeps my mom active
Every week, he accompanies my mom to various activities to challenge her brain and keep her happy and healthy: ping-pong, swimming lessons, weightlifting, and Zumba classes. At times, it sounds like they're living on a college campus. Every time I see her, she's laughing and smiling.
What hasn't changed is the way she looks at us. I am her favorite child, after all.
When my fiancé and I got engaged this past summer, my only priority was planning a wedding quickly. My dad encouraged me to plan it within a year to ensure my mom could attend and understand what was happening.
We'll be married at the end of next summer, and there's no doubt in my mind that my mother and father will be walking me down the aisle. I couldn't imagine celebrating this milestone without my two best friends by my side.
I realized I'm not alone
When I graduated from graduate school, my parents each wrote me a note on the card they gave me. My mom wrote, "You can be anything." Those words are now tattooed on my left wrist, a constant reminder of how much she's always believed in me. On my right wrist is a tattoo of a Chai necklace my dad gave me, which his father gave him. It's a constant reminder of the challenges each generation in my family has succeeded through.
My father has my mother completing coloring books every week now. My partner and I plan to frame some of her drawings for our children's bedroom one day. Regardless of what the next couple of years brings my family, my mother's presence will be everywhere.
The more I talked about my experience and feelings, the more I realized people around me were in similar situations. People in their 20s, 30s, and 40s all told me about a parent who was living with memory loss and how it impacted their families.
The Alzheimer's Association says almost two-thirds of Americans living with Alzheimer's are women. Please remember: None of us is ever really alone.
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