PLAYING PADDLEBALL WITH MY SISTER

Every Christmas, when I was a child, I would receive a paddle ball in my stocking. It was a paddle with a rubber band attached to it and a ball on the end of the rubber band.

I would paddle so hard to keep the ball bouncing from the paddle into the air. Peggy and I would play this game for hours. The trick was to keep the ball meeting the paddle.  Not an easy task to complete every time but we had such fun trying.

Peggy is like the ball on the end of the rubber band. She goes up and down from day to day.  I am never quite sure if I can keep the ball bouncing from my heart to hers.

I am never quite sure if the call that I make today will be the last time that I am able to bounce the ball from my heart to Peggy's ears.

 Peggy is the ball on the rubber band and she is attached to the paddle board.

The paddle board is the life that she had lived, the bouncing ball is the life that she lives today. 

She is being bounced up and down and the paddle is in the hands of Alzheimer's disease.

Today, I had the paddle in my hands for a second. I told her that I loved her today she said, I love you too!

At that instant, Alzheimer's took the paddle from my hand and continued it's game with her life bouncing her up and down and she was confused again.

For a second....

For just a second...

I held the paddle board in my hand and the ball that was Peggy came flying from the air and hit my paddle dead center by telling me that she loved me.

A small gift on a snowy, cold day.

I was able to playing paddle ball with my sister again. We both won and we both lost but we did play!

I Love You Today, Peggy!

Mary Louise.

 

THE SNOWBALL EFFECT

My grief over watching Peggy disappear is huge but I am also aware that it is made bigger because of unresolved grief from my past.

Grief that I stuffed down and refused to deal with at the time.

Grief that I didn't want to think about, much less go there to sort out.

I think that grief has a way of building up if it is not dealt with at the time it occurs.

If the grief of a life time is still roaming around somewhere inside of us, unresolved, it re-emerges when faced with a present grief.

I am very aware that I am not only watching Peggy disappear but re visiting the grief's of my lifetime.

Unresolved grief is like a tiny snowball  that starts rolling down a hill and increasing in size as it rolls.

When the giant snowball of grief from the past meets a stationary time of grieving in the present, it explodes all over the present grief and becomes a part of it.

 Then, it is difficult to separate the grief from the past and the grief of today.

It all mixes forming a solid ice ball that will take time to thaw.

 The thaw will come to my heart and then my grief will become a flowing river. A river that is always present but never damned up to form a lake that could freeze in winter.

We all experience grief during our lives, if we didn't.... how could we understand what joy is like!!!  

I have heard it said that there can never be two mountains without a valley. If there were no valley's...how could we ever climb to the mountain top!

I have had the joy of a sister that I love and the grief of watching her disappear but..........

 I am a stronger person because of making this difficult journey through the ice and snow of Alzheimer's disease.

I Love You Today, Peggy!

Mary Louise

THE CHESS GAME

Peggy continues to surprise me.

For several weeks, she would not talk with me. She would lay the phone down and walk away.

That is what I was expecting today but instead she talked. I told her that I loved her today and she replied, OK.

I said, Peggy, you do know that I love you and think of you every day, don't you?

Yes, she said.

That is all I wanted to say to her today.

That is all I wanted her to hear today. 

Alzheimer's disease takes the people we love away and then, out of nowhere, gives them back for a few seconds.

It is a game of Chess with a monster...Now you see me...Now you don't!

I never know what to expect when I call Peggy because Alzheimer's sets the rules of the chess game and changes them at will.

Today, I heard her voice.

Tomorrow, maybe not.

Alzheimer's may be in control of this chess game but I will never stop playing and trying to win.

I won today because I heard Peggy's voice and she heard mine.

Game....Mary Louise!!!        

Tomorrow the rules will change again and I will play the game again.

I will play the game until Alzheimer's folds the game board and takes the pieces that are left of Peggy and declares....

Game Over!

I Love You Today, Peggy!

Mary Louise

THE TIME HAS COME

Peggy saw her Doctor last week. I received the news, last evening that she has reached the stage of Alzheimer's disease where she will need nursing home care.

I knew it was coming and I knew she was worse but it was easy to pretend.

I thought that I had cried every tear in my body over losing Peggy. Surprise...There was a under ground spring that rose to the surface last evening when I heard the news.

The day has arrived when Peggy's husband will have to make the decision of his life. The decision to put Peggy into a nursing facility.

He is struggling with what to do and when to do it.

He has been a rock for Peggy. He is still a young man and this is a decision that he never thought that he would have to make.

I tried to put myself in his place and thought about what it would be like if I were making this decision about my husband. The pain was very real as I went through the thought process of thinking about losing my husband. Making the decision to take him out of our home and put him into a Nursing facility

I cried, thinking of the empty place that putting him in a nursing home would bring to my life.

I also felt a sense of relief that the constant, 24 hour would be in the hands of others. But there was also a feeling of intense loneliness that crept into my heart.

I felt so many emotions that I was relieved when I could pull back from the pain and know that I did not have to make this decision about my husband, my life.

I support my brother-in-law in this decision and when he thinks that it is the right time. I know that Peggy would also support this decision.

Please keep him in your prayers as he makes the decision of a lifetime. The decision that he can no longer care for Peggy the way that she needs to be taken care of. That he can no longer keep her with him...at home.

The decision to...let go.

I knew the day was getting close when Peggy wouldn't talk or listen to me when I called her. She would just lay the phone down.

My voice was no longer helping her because she is living in a world of strangers.

My voice was not reaching her on any level because she had forgotten my voice and that we are sisters.

My heart is breaking as I write this morning because it has finally reached my heart that Peggy has begun her final disappearance from my life

 I knew this daywas coming but now that it is arriving...I feel blind sided.

It was easy to pretend, to think that my calls were helping her to stay, to stay a little longer.

Some of my grief is the realization that I am not as powerful as I thought that I was in Peggy's life.

I wanted to save her, to be the one who was able to get through to her.

This morning, in my grief.......I have come face to face with me.

A me that is not powerful at all but just a sister who can do nothing but...

Watch My Sister...Disappear for good.

I Love You, Peggy and will continue to write about you and what this grief feels like as you continue to disappear.

I hope that you know on some level, that you have helped a lot of people because of your story.

My Sister, My forever Friend...I Love You Today and Always!

It is true that you are disappearing from this world but never from the hearts who have known and loved you along the short way called.....Your life.

I received this message in a e-mail this morning and have adapted it to fit Peggy......

When Peggy came into this world she was crying......and everyone else around her was smiling.

As she continues to disappear from this world...She is smiling and everyone else around her is crying!

I Love You Today, Peggy!

Mary Louise

PEGGY'S SONG

Peggy and I have always loved music.

I heard this piece of music many times before Peggy got sick. It was pinned by Liszt somewhere between 1849 and 1850.

E Major Un poco piu mosso is played in this journal by a man named Ross Rahn.

I heard it again the other day and the melody haunted me. I couldn't figure out why so I played it over and over.

I was driving the other day and played the music again and as I listened, I realized that this piano piece represented to me, the essence of Peggy's life!

This music that was written so long ago, represents Peggy's life to me.

The first part of the piece is her birth, childhood, teen years and the first part of her 20's.  

The middle of the musical piece, when the fingers play stronger and the music is louder is when Peggy entered her late 20's, 30's and 40's. She was healthy and strong. She was caring and involved with life. She was a tennis singles champion and played a great game of golf. She volunteered and taught under privileged children how to read. She was a mother to two daughters. She was a corporate wife and entertained in her home. She was alive in the middle of her life as the music indicates.

Then, the music changes key and slows down towards the end of the piece. That is when she was in her late 40's and Alzheimer's disease entered her mind.

Listening to the last of this beautiful piece, the music slowly fades away......

Just like Peggy.

I hope you will listen to this beautiful music and think of Peggy.

The beauty of music.... my heart hears and understands.

This piano piece is...My Sister, Peggy.

I Love You today, Peggy!

Mary Louise

You may need to copy and paste the address in your browser to listen or click on the address and open the song.

http://www.members.aol.com/mlrhjeh/peggyssong.wma

Roxio

OR

http://www.members.aol.com/mlrhjeh/peggyssong.midi

in Windows Media Player

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES

Peggy had a birthday yesterday.

I called her and when she said hello, I broke into the birthday song. About halfway through my Happy Birthday to You, her husband's voice came on the phone and he said that Peggy had laid the phone down.

He thinks that phone calls confuse her now. He also said that Peggy thinks that it is a recording or maybe, she is confused by the words. It is as if I am speaking a language that she cannot understand.

He called her back to the phone and when she said hello, I asked her if she would like for me to sing to her again. She said yes and I sang happy birthday to her. This time, when I finished the song she said, Thank you. But the thank you was with a cool tone.

She then laid the phone down and walked away before I could say anything else.

After I hung up the phone, I just sat there looking at the phone in my hand. My mind wandered back to last year and the birthday call to her.

Last year, she laughed and sang with me.

Yesterday, she couldn't even hold the phone.

Yesterday, I felt these things in her voice.......

Birthday?

Song?

Who are you?

Why are you singing?

What is a birthday?

I also felt from her voice....irritation that said,

Leave me alone.

What a difference a year makes with Alzheimer's disease.What a difference in the sister that I love and remember.

Our relationship is one sided now but I know that if Peggy could make it different...she would.

Alzheimer's is like a thief that comes in the night and steals all birthdays and remembrances of birthdays. It has torn her birthday memories into tiny pieces and thrown them to the wind.

I stand in my remembrances of Peggy's birthday's and look toward the sky just in time to see the tiny pieces of her birthdays, past and present floating, twisting and turning in the wind and finally disappearing.

I still see Peggy....

But she doesn't see me. 

It is OK because.....

Peggy will always be locked inside of my heart and .......

I have Lost the key!                      

 

Happy Birthday, Peggy!

I Love You Today and always!

Mary Louise

 

A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

I wonder what Peggy thinks about every day? I wonder if she thinks at all.

I asked her today if she ever thinks about Mother and Daddy and she said, yes.

I asked her if she ever thinks about when we were little and she said, yes.

I asked her if she thinks about Betty Jean, Barbara and Johnny and she said, yes.

I asked if she knew who Mary Louise was and she said, yes.

Everything was a yes.

I was not sure if she understood what I was asking or what she was saying yes too, so I said, Do you think about the ground?

Her answer was......Yes.

I would like to understand what a day is like inside of Peggy's mind.

What does she see when she looks out of her eyes?

Is she able to think and process her thoughts?

I wonder if everything she sees is a mystery to her. I wonder if she can put a name to the objects around her.  Objects like a book, a lamp, a blanket or a flower. I wonder if she knows what food is when she eats?

I wonder if her mind has become a blank sheet of paper or are some of her memories still written there?

What do her thought processes write on her mind as she sees her world? What does she think when she watches television or hears music on the radio?

When I visited with her, she would watch the television screen but I couldn't tell if she knew what she was seeing. One of the major things that I noticed was that she would never look me in the face. She would never make eye contact with me. Her face had a blank look but it also had a serene look. A look like nothing bothered her, nothing frightened her and also like nothing meant anything to her.

She just was.......

I wonder what it would be like to....disremember every single part of your life?

I think of our minds as a chalkboard and we write on it from the time of our birth. When we reach adulthood, we have written many thoughts and memories on the chalkboard of our mind.

I think of Alzheimer's disease as a giant chalkboard eraser. It enters a mind and starts the process of erasing the memories, feelings and information that is stored there.

It wipes the chalkboard of our mind clean of all that has been written there.  It continues to erase until there are only faint marks left on a person's mind. A mind that is still alive but cannot  read, recall or function as a adult.

Alzheimer's disease takes an intelligent, competent adult back in time to the existence of a baby.  It erases thoughts, memories and the ability to do even minor tasks that we all take for granted.

Tasks like combing your hair, brushing your teeth, putting on your clothes or going to the bathroom. It takes your mind back to the time when you were totally dependent. Totally dependent on those who love you to take care of you. 

Alzheimer's disease erases your mind until it has made you a tiny baby in a adult body.

The disease will progress to a time when Peggy will forget how to chew and swallow and then finally.....forget how to breathe.                   

There was a time in the beginning of the disease that Peggy was afraid. She would talk with me and I could hear the fear in her voice. She didn't know what was wrong with her and neither did her doctors. 

I am thankful that Alzheimer's has erased the fear that I heard in her voice in the beginning. I am angry that it has also erased who she was and who she could be.

Now, Peggy just sits and waits with a calm demeanor for Alzheimer's to finish the job of erasing her mind. She waits for it to finish what it started in her mind 4 years ago.

Peggy will continue to sit and wait for the final swipe of the eraser. The final swipe when she will be erased from this world forever.     

Alzheimer's disease will erase her from....... herself.

But Peggy will never be erased from the hearts of those who love her!

I Love You Today, Peggy!

Mary Louise